E.W. Jackson Falsely Claims California Is Set to Legalize Pedophilia – By Kyle Mantyla (Right Wing Watch) / Sept 8 2020
Last week, the California legislature passed a bill aimed at ending discrimination against LGBTQ youth regarding the state’s sex offender registry. Predictably, religious-right anti-LGBTQ activists have seized on the legislation to falsely suggest that the state is attempting to legalize pedophilia.
Under current California law, voluntary sex between a person aged 14 to 17 years old and an adult no more than 10 years older is illegal, but in cases involving vaginal intercourse, judges are given discretion to decide if the adult must be required to register as a sex offender. But in cases involving all other forms of intercourse, such as oral or anal intercourse, the judge is given no such discretion, and sex offender registration for the adult is required.
As such, in cases where, for example, a 19-year-old male had “traditional” sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old female, it would be up to the judge to decide if the 1- year-old male must register as a sex offender, whereas in cases where a 19-year-old male had oral or anal sex with a 17-year-old male, the 19-year-old male would automatically be required to register as a sex offender.
The California legislation aims to eliminate this discrimination by giving judges the discretion to decide whether the adult in all cases involving voluntary intercourse with a minor within 10 years of age must register as sex offenders. The legislation does not legalize such intercourse, nor does it legalize pedophilia in any way, as the countless articles fact-checking such baseless claims make clear.
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