Sex Offenses and Sex Offenders USAI have read of instances where the aggrieved, many years later, sought legal redress, most commonly in the form of $'s, and complained of the 'trauma'. The question comes to mind, "if as a person one year younger than the age of consent, you suffered trauma, then why is it that now that the legal age has been lowered one year, that young people legally able to indulge, do not also suffer trauma?"
I know of an American Citizen (British) who during a divorce process, had a restraining order taken out on him by his wife, although there was no evidence that he had ever done any physical harm to her, or that he had made any threats to do so.
When the day came for the 'hired company' to go to the marital home and collect his belongings, he received a telephone call from the company to say that they would be an hour late. He telephoned his wife and left a message on the answering machine advising her of the change.
The result was that we was charged with violating the court order, and he was found guilty of a criminal offence. As a lawyer, he lost his job. He has since left America in disgust.
Can you imagine a whole community turning against you because you made a telephone call?
I have no knowledge of the current legal situation in Maine apart from M/s Holland's article, but it did bring to mind something that I remember questioning in an article I published somewhere, on the issue of 'sex offenders', specifically in relation to paedophiles.
When a person who is 3 months into their 'age of consent', has some sexual relationship with a person 3 months 'under their age of consent', they are in fact paedophiles, although they would not fit our 'stereotypical profile' of such an offender.
When we read of an underage person who succumbed to the sexual advances of an older person, we often read of the trauma that they suffered. (I am not talking here about victims who were years younger than the age of consent, nor of emotional or physical abuse or threats).
I have read of instances where the aggrieved, many years later, sought legal redress, most commonly in the form of $'s, and complained of the 'trauma'. The question comes to mind, "if as a person one year younger than the age of consent, you suffered trauma, then why is it that now that the legal age has been lowered one year, that young people legally able to indulge, do not also suffer trauma?"
Do you get my drift? Another way to put it, is that what is OK and legal today, was not OK nor legal yesterday. So I would ask the question, "how many people in this position, will the new law net?"
It is akin to the analogy drawn by M/s Holland when she refers to "The crimes can be anything from a 19 year old who had a nude picture of his 17 year old girlfriend....". What may have been willingly given, could easily be used as a tool of malicious vengeance.
Moving a little off center now, I believe that you have the same situation in America as we have in Australia, which is, that you can't advertise cigarettes on TV. Why? Because it affects impressionable young minds. Yet by some strange twist of mental logic, violence on the News, in Movies, and in computer games, apparently has no effect on impressionable minds whatsoever. We would have to be idiots to believe this, but then, politicians and lawmakers often take us for idiots, precisely because we don't stand up for ourselves.
And so it is correct and quite apt I think, for M/s Holland to point out that if the new laws are about being protected, then the community has a right to be protected from all the other dangers and dangerous people. What is the purpose of this law? Is it to protect the community or to pander to the interest of powerful lobby groups?
If it is to protect the community, then those who have paid their dues and presumably never reoffended, have a right to protection as well, especially in cases where the offence was 'technical' rather than intentionally criminal.
As a final thought, I wonder how many people there might be, who at some point of time, as a result of a deliberate 'in your face' act, or being a little too exuberated (or innebriated), flashed a buttock, breast or worse, who might fall into the category of a 'sex offender', and who might now be at risk from the community, as opposed to being a risk to the community?
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R.P.BenDedek is the owner and Editor of KingsCalendar.com which was originally set up to publicize his research results into the Chronology of Ancient Israel. Those results were published under the title: 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran'.
Whilst there have been many attempts to solve the chronological riddle of the Bible's synchronisms of reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah and their synchronism with other Ancient Near Eastern Nations, no other research is based on a simple mathematical formula which could, if it is incorrect, be disproved easily. To date, no one has been able to dismiss the mathematical results of this research.
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