Now that America is well on its way to being full-on gay homosexual rainbow flag-waving equality-for-all-land, what with state after state after state jumping on the marriage rights bandwagon and the Supreme Court about half a second away from being all, "Nah, dude, you totes can't have laws that only let
The R&J exception doesn't decriminalize the conduct - it's still a felony. All it does is remove the requirement to register as a sex offender. Nothing in the law distinguishes same-sex behavior, so she can presumably take advantage of the exception, but the felony thing will still be hung around her neck.
Here&#039;s a question for the defense: &quot;Lascivious behavior&quot; with a minor qualifies as a statutory sex offense in FL, but can the prosecution PROVE what happened between these two kids? Unless the minor admits it on the record, all they have is what the parents <i>think</i> happened, or maybe hearsay regarding what the minor told them. If the kids don&#039;t talk, or if they admit to nothing more than cuddling and kissing, where&#039;s the proof needed to convict?
Sadly, there&#039;s no law against being a vindictive asshole, and it&#039;s entirely possible that the parents, being assholes, got a lawyer to help them out. His very first move would have been to attend to this detail by extracting a legally admissible statement from the kid.
I hate to be the dog in the manger but if I understand this correctly the issue isn&#039;t really the whole lesbian thing as much as it is the 18yr. old having sex with a 15yr. old which is illegal in Florida.
Now before everyone screams &quot;Romeo and Juliet Laws&quot; at me, here&#039;s the deal. The Florida R/J law does not make it legal for an 18year old to have sex with a 15 year old. It simply allows them to petition the court to not have to register as a sex offender after their conviction if they meet certain criteria. Here&#039;s a link to some legal speak. <a href="http:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/PublishedContent\/Session\/2012\/InterimReports\/2012-214cj.pdf" target="_blank">" rel="nofollow noopener" title="http://www.flsenate.gov/PublishedContent/Session/...">http://www.flsenate.gov/Pub...
Now I&#039;d be the first to suggest that the law should be modified so that consenting teen agers sexing it up should not be a crime period but as the Florida law currently stands this case isn&#039;t about &quot;She&#039;s gay OH NO!!&quot; Its all about the age thing and the Florida Romeo Juliet Law doesn&#039;t make it legal even if she is an awesome person etc.
I hear you on this. I&#039;m skeptical of the idea that the coach is somehow a bigot. The badguys in this ugly story are the younger girl&#039;s parents. Attacking the coach seems to me like deflection from the actual issue.
It is striking that there&#039;s a rule in place prohibiting dating within a same-sex team. One would almost imagine that the people who write the rules in high school sports are not entirely unfamiliar with the possibility that teenagers sometimes are gay and that team sports can be a locus of a lot of romantic angst, and even power relationships among older and younger kids.
Not in Florida, of course--only in enlightened northern states.
I like the point Minoritybabble is making. The coach is carrying out a rule that actually makes some sense to me, and I don&#039;t see it as homophobic. On the contrary, it recognizes the existence of same-sex romances in high school. All it does is define some rules within a team about sexual relationships. Given that team sports are a petrie dish of fermenting hormones, that doesn&#039;t seem too terribly inappropriate.
I suppose that romances within a team (whether coed or single-gender) maybe don&#039;t cause problems, and if that&#039;s true then I suppose one could argue that only gay romances are being targeted when the pair are both on the same sports team.
But I remember high school sports as being a primary place where sexual attractions played out--as well as a lot of weird sexual power games among older and younger kids, more attractive and less attractive kids. It got pretty brutal and the kids who were a little late in developing their sexual identities got targeted in a lot of different ways. It sounds to me like the rule against dating is meant to protect kids who are in that hotbed. Maybe its misguided, but it doesn&#039;t scream homophobia to me.
The parents of the younger girl, now, and the school board--they can burn in hell.
What I find remarkable about the comments on TP is the number of people who say something like &quot;If this was an 18-year old boy, people would be calling for his head&quot;, as if this somehow justifies the treatment of the girl.
Of course, they&#039;re lying (or projecting). If the circumstances were exactly the same, except for the gender of the older kid, my reaction would be exactly the same, and I suspect that is true of most people who are upset about this bullshit.
This sub-thread has devoted an awful lot of effort to litigating the question: &quot;Is the basketball coach a bigot, or simply not very thoughtful of consequences?&quot; The no-dating-teammates rule, no matter what its motivation, is, when applied to a one-sex team, a <i>de facto</i> prohibition of same-sex dating. It will be perceived that way by all concerned. Whether it rises to the level of illegal discrimination is something for lawyers to discuss. At a practical level, it amounts to discrimination, as would any other attempt by the school to place restrictions on the social activities of students based on their personal characteristics.
But this discussion sort of takes attention away from the actions of the school board, or of the younger girl&#039;s rather vengeful parents. Getting kicked of the hoop team is hardly the worst thing that Kaitlyn faces.
Okay, so are they expelling and arresting every single male senior who&#039;s doing the horizontal lambada with their sophomore or lower-aged junior girlfriend?
But ... that ... makes sense. How in hell did it pass through the Floriduh legislature? Perhaps it&#039;s a fossil law, a reminder of a long-ago age when rational people ran the joint.
Either that, or some rich Republican&#039;s kid had to be gotten off the hook somehow.
Hey, NYC is way down at 17th on the <a href="http:\/\/www.stateoftheair.org\/2013\/city-rankings\/most-polluted-cities.html" target="_blank">crappy-air list</a> -- and the only reason we&#039;re that high is because we get lumped in with Newark.
Why would you even tell other freshmen&#039;s parents?
The R&amp;J exception doesn&#039;t decriminalize the conduct - it&#039;s still a felony. All it does is remove the requirement to register as a sex offender. Nothing in the law distinguishes same-sex behavior, so she can presumably take advantage of the exception, but the felony thing will still be hung around her neck.
Here&#039;s a question for the defense: &quot;Lascivious behavior&quot; with a minor qualifies as a statutory sex offense in FL, but can the prosecution PROVE what happened between these two kids? Unless the minor admits it on the record, all they have is what the parents <i>think</i> happened, or maybe hearsay regarding what the minor told them. If the kids don&#039;t talk, or if they admit to nothing more than cuddling and kissing, where&#039;s the proof needed to convict?
Sadly, there&#039;s no law against being a vindictive asshole, and it&#039;s entirely possible that the parents, being assholes, got a lawyer to help them out. His very first move would have been to attend to this detail by extracting a legally admissible statement from the kid.
I hate to be the dog in the manger but if I understand this correctly the issue isn&#039;t really the whole lesbian thing as much as it is the 18yr. old having sex with a 15yr. old which is illegal in Florida.
Now before everyone screams &quot;Romeo and Juliet Laws&quot; at me, here&#039;s the deal. The Florida R/J law does not make it legal for an 18year old to have sex with a 15 year old. It simply allows them to petition the court to not have to register as a sex offender after their conviction if they meet certain criteria. Here&#039;s a link to some legal speak. <a href="http:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/PublishedContent\/Session\/2012\/InterimReports\/2012-214cj.pdf" target="_blank">" rel="nofollow noopener" title="http://www.flsenate.gov/PublishedContent/Session/...">http://www.flsenate.gov/Pub...
Now I&#039;d be the first to suggest that the law should be modified so that consenting teen agers sexing it up should not be a crime period but as the Florida law currently stands this case isn&#039;t about &quot;She&#039;s gay OH NO!!&quot; Its all about the age thing and the Florida Romeo Juliet Law doesn&#039;t make it legal even if she is an awesome person etc.
Don&#039;t shoot the messenger please.
Free trips to Venus! As advertised on Fox!
I hear you on this. I&#039;m skeptical of the idea that the coach is somehow a bigot. The badguys in this ugly story are the younger girl&#039;s parents. Attacking the coach seems to me like deflection from the actual issue.
It is striking that there&#039;s a rule in place prohibiting dating within a same-sex team. One would almost imagine that the people who write the rules in high school sports are not entirely unfamiliar with the possibility that teenagers sometimes are gay and that team sports can be a locus of a lot of romantic angst, and even power relationships among older and younger kids.
Not in Florida, of course--only in enlightened northern states.
I like the point Minoritybabble is making. The coach is carrying out a rule that actually makes some sense to me, and I don&#039;t see it as homophobic. On the contrary, it recognizes the existence of same-sex romances in high school. All it does is define some rules within a team about sexual relationships. Given that team sports are a petrie dish of fermenting hormones, that doesn&#039;t seem too terribly inappropriate.
I suppose that romances within a team (whether coed or single-gender) maybe don&#039;t cause problems, and if that&#039;s true then I suppose one could argue that only gay romances are being targeted when the pair are both on the same sports team.
But I remember high school sports as being a primary place where sexual attractions played out--as well as a lot of weird sexual power games among older and younger kids, more attractive and less attractive kids. It got pretty brutal and the kids who were a little late in developing their sexual identities got targeted in a lot of different ways. It sounds to me like the rule against dating is meant to protect kids who are in that hotbed. Maybe its misguided, but it doesn&#039;t scream homophobia to me.
The parents of the younger girl, now, and the school board--they can burn in hell.
What I find remarkable about the comments on TP is the number of people who say something like &quot;If this was an 18-year old boy, people would be calling for his head&quot;, as if this somehow justifies the treatment of the girl.
Of course, they&#039;re lying (or projecting). If the circumstances were exactly the same, except for the gender of the older kid, my reaction would be exactly the same, and I suspect that is true of most people who are upset about this bullshit.
This sub-thread has devoted an awful lot of effort to litigating the question: &quot;Is the basketball coach a bigot, or simply not very thoughtful of consequences?&quot; The no-dating-teammates rule, no matter what its motivation, is, when applied to a one-sex team, a <i>de facto</i> prohibition of same-sex dating. It will be perceived that way by all concerned. Whether it rises to the level of illegal discrimination is something for lawyers to discuss. At a practical level, it amounts to discrimination, as would any other attempt by the school to place restrictions on the social activities of students based on their personal characteristics.
But this discussion sort of takes attention away from the actions of the school board, or of the younger girl&#039;s rather vengeful parents. Getting kicked of the hoop team is hardly the worst thing that Kaitlyn faces.
40.5% to 37.0%.
Oh, you bad.
Okay, so are they expelling and arresting every single male senior who&#039;s doing the horizontal lambada with their sophomore or lower-aged junior girlfriend?
No? Didn&#039;t think so.
90% of the state will be underwater within a century, so you just have to be patient.
But ... that ... makes sense. How in hell did it pass through the Floriduh legislature? Perhaps it&#039;s a fossil law, a reminder of a long-ago age when rational people ran the joint.
Either that, or some rich Republican&#039;s kid had to be gotten off the hook somehow.
Another 0.5 degree rise in surface water temps, and that problem just might be solved.
Hey, NYC is way down at 17th on the <a href="http:\/\/www.stateoftheair.org\/2013\/city-rankings\/most-polluted-cities.html" target="_blank">crappy-air list</a> -- and the only reason we&#039;re that high is because we get lumped in with Newark.