posted
I saw something today in Free Speech Alley that infuriated me to no end.
As I was walking home from class, I happened upon some people pushing a 'no' vote on the gay marriage ban. A young man was calling them 'inhuman' for being gay and supporting supporting 'such a crime to nature and God'.
Now, I'm a liberal, so maybe this crossed a line for me, but I still don't see how someone can be 'inhuman' for being who they are. I understand that Christianity frowns upon homosexuality, but I do know that the Catholic doctorine calls on gays to become clergymen so that they will take a vow of chastity.
This just infuritated me to no end, and after the person left, I approached the lobbyists and commended them on their bravery. They're certainly braver than I, that's for certain.
His (sad) reply was, "I'm used to it by now, but thank you for your support."
This upset me even more!
I understand that people have different views, but WHY is it so HARD for people to accept that fact?!
... I think this struck home with me because I have a very close friend who just recently told me she was bisexual. Although I wasn't exactally stunned by this news--I had suspected for a while--she told me that she had never told anyone because the last person she told beat her up over it. Someone who called himself her FRIEND. That, in my opinion, tarnishes the name.
Please, I urge EVERYONE, liberals, conservatives and moderates alike, please don't stoop to this level. If you wish to have a conversation, make it civil, and try to keep an open mind. If you get too heated, take a step back and think before you yell that someone is inhuman because they are different from yourself.
Posts: 873 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
(((Mayday))) Those who call it "inhuman" are definitely overreacting and hurting the truth they purport to serve.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I had a professor in college who said, "There are two types of people who are violent against gays, those who get hit on too often by members of their own sex, and those who don't get hit on often enough by them."
Think of it as an OCD problem. Some people enjoy putting things in their proper place. They are fanatical about where their pencil goes on their desk and where their books are aligned and what is what and what isn't. They cannot handle a world disordered. To them Men are Men and women are women and when you confuse that division it is an assault on their basic understanding of the universe. They just can not accept that some men like other men and some women like other women and some of both like both. Many turn to history or religion to desparately prove themselves right and in doing so, shielding their narrow mindedness behind the bible or US history, they tarnish both.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I agree with you Telp--Insanity Plea and I have been fighting over who gets to kill the so-called 'friend' first.
My friend and I have since had many conversations about homosexuality--mostly because I, as a heterosexual, am curious to see both sides of the coin. Of course, it's a lot easier for me because I'm also on her side of the debate.
I just don't see how this is justified, on either side. When I told my roommate, however, she just shrugged and said, "Well, ignorance is rampant". Shouldn't we change this, though? And how would one go about changing it? Religion and politics and the gray space between is the kindling for firey tempers.
Edit to add: Dan, I think you answered my question, and in a very eloquent manner, too. I just hate to see people hurting one another in such a way.
posted
A person's sexual orientation is just that, an angle from which they view their sexuality. Assigning the label inhuman to that orientation is the mark of either fear or ignorance. Even if you think that homosexuality is a genetic malfunction or a sin, that doesn't strip the humanity from a practitioner. It's a shame that so many react with vitriol and violence when confronted with ideas that aren't within their framework.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Human nature is what it is - whether it marches under the Swastika or the Cross.
In retrospect, this is harsher than I intended.
I certainly don't mean to imply Christians are equal to Nazis (Godwin's Law, anyone?), but I do think fear, ignorance and hatred can march openly or lurk in dark corners.
quote: How do you feel about pedophiles, for instance?
I don't consider pedophiles inhuman. That would limit their culpability. They're not sick - they're acts are sickening. They're not inhuman - they're just humans that do evil things.
posted
I have OCD. Where's the raised eyebrow smiley?
Xap, I feel bad for pedophiles. But I tend to use the word "inhuman" as a descriptor for behavior that denies the humanity of others. Torture is inhuman. Murder for gain is inhuman. [e]Rape is inhuman, and by extension, sex with a minor is inhuman.[/e]
I don't know if the people doing it are necessarily inhuman. They may do an inhuman thing. But I don't think anyone can do something that permanently removes themselves from the ranks of the human race. But I believe in an infinite atonement for sin.
posted
I want to change it... I'm so tired of things like that I could cry. Even if it didn't affect me directly it would drive me crazy. Why do you think I spent so much time arguing on places like the CWFA bulletin board? I don't care if it's human nature. That's no excuse. It has to change and that is all there is to it. People who say that society is being destroyed by gays, lesbians, bi people and trans people don't understand that it has ALREADY been destroyed because of the intolerance!
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I believe I agree with you (except for that infinite atonement part), pooka, but I can understand how one might feel a pedophile is inhuman. And thus I imagine, in the same way, one might feel a homosexual is inhuman.
posted
Xap, I have to disagree. Children are victims. Gay men are consenting adults. It is the youth in children, their vulnerability, that sickens us.
We might find homosexual sex squicky, but we all acknowledge that "squicky" implies an irrational response. The moral disgust at a pedophile is far more similar to disgust at acts of violence, while being squicked at homosexuality is more like being disgusted by someone who likes to eat live earthworms. (Incidentally, it is my understanding that many homosexuals are similarly squicked out by heterosexual sex.)
You may believe that it is a sin (as do I) but only in the same way that two consenting adults having sex outside marriage is a sin. One does not have victims any more than does the other.
Opinions differ, Bev. Of my buddy's peer group, most of them have been with a woman at least once, usually because they were trying to live a lie or convince themselves they were straight.
My friend, however, has never been with a woman, even though he has never failed to draw every woman's attention in whatever room he entered, to my eternal amusement.
And we both accept we find the details of each other's sexual tastes a tad squicky, but that just means we can eyeball a couple and divide the spoils evenly.
quote:Children are victims. Gay men are consenting adults.
So sex with children would be okay whenever they consent? I suspect you don't actually believe that. I suspect you'd still consider it wrongful even if the child fully understood what he or she was doing (something that can't even be said for many adults who have sex) and chose to do it willingfully.
quote:We might find homosexual sex squicky, but we all acknowledge that "squicky" implies an irrational response.
We ALL do? I bet those people who are calling homosexuals "inhuman" do not acknowledge that.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sex with a minor is taboo for the same reason selling cigarettes or alcohol to a minor is taboo: Minors aren't believed to have the wisdom/experiance to fully understand the consequences. Therefore, gay sex between consenting partners and sex with minors are very, very, very different things. Most obviously the part where one is illegal and one is not.
This whole bigotry thing drives me crazy. It's one thing to have a dissenting opinion, but could we at least keep our hate-filled bile to ourselves? IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK!?!
Apparently. lets all get along.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Actually Xap, I don't believe children have the capacity to make that choice.
Oh come on... you might as well say adults don't have the capacity to choose to have gay sex, and thus gay sex is wrong. That's just defining away the problem.
After all, I'm sure there are cases where children DID in fact agree willingly to do it. In fact, I know for certain there are cases of TWO kids choosing to have sex with one another - obviously one of them at least had to have made a choice - they both can't be forcing the other against the other's will. We can say their choice isn't really a choice because they are a kid, but who are we kidding?
posted
Poor choice of words in the last sentence, Xap.
As a society, we do not recognize a minor's ability to make certain decisions. We define this recognition in the form of laws designed to regulate what a minor can and cannot do - drinking, smoking and voting, for example.
If an adult chooses to engage in behavior in specifically outlawed, that is well within his or her prerogative to do so without sanction or consequence. When the same adult chooses to perform an act that is specifically proscribed by society, he or she is then bound by the sanctions levied by society.
The homosexual adult, like any adult, is recognized as having the capacity and ability to make decisions without the need of a parent or guardian, provided certain criteria are met. That criteria is a uniform standard that is applied regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation.
If you want to argue morality, my morality runs along these lines: "As long as it happens between consenting adults, I don't care. Violate either requirement and I feel I must take issue."
The criticism falls thusly: a homosexual person engages in a consentual act with another person.
A pedophile assaults, molests and/or rapes a child who, by law, is unable to consent or has the capacity to consent.
One is clearly worse than the other, even if we were to assume homosexuality was indeed bad.
quote: I believe I agree with you (except for that infinite atonement part), pooka, but I can understand how one might feel a pedophile is inhuman. And thus I imagine, in the same way, one might feel a homosexual is inhuman.
Xap... please, please, please, PLEASE tell me you ARE NOT comparing homesexuals to pedophiles... cause it sure as heck looks like you are... and if you are ... Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think he is saying that in the eyes of these people homosexuals are as depraved as pedophiles Which is completely wrong, but try telling them that! I have! I failed miserably.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Xap... please, please, please, PLEASE tell me you ARE NOT comparing homesexuals to pedophiles... cause it sure as heck looks like you are... and if you are ...
I am. I was asked why someone could consider other people 'inhuman' for being homosexuals. My answer is, in the same way many consider people 'inhuman' for being pedophiles. The fact that the mere comparison of a pedophile to a homosexual would induce the makes me suspect that you can understand why one might be angry enough to call someone "inhuman" for giving into certain sexual desires they have.
quote:If you want to argue morality, my morality runs along these lines: "As long as it happens between consenting adults, I don't care. Violate either requirement and I feel I must take issue."
The criticism falls thusly: a homosexual person engages in a consentual act with another person.
A pedophile assaults, molests and/or rapes a child who, by law, is unable to consent or has the capacity to consent.
So that is where you draw the line between dangerously harmful and acceptable-even-if-disliked.
Now imagine how you'd feel if you felt we should not legally recognize an adult's right to be gay. Imagine if you drew the line with homosexuals being where you have pedophiles now - on the dangerously harmful side. THAT'S how someone can consider gay people inhuman... their line is in a different spot.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:The fact that the mere comparison of a pedophile to a homosexual would induce the makes me suspect that you can understand why one might be angry enough to call someone "inhuman" for giving into certain sexual desires they have.
Pedophiles aren't "inhuman" (if that's what they are) because they give into their sexual desires but because their sexual desires harm innocent children. Where's the victim in a consensual act of adult gay sex?
-
Then again, I can understand why one might be angry enough to call someone "inhuman" for etc. etc. It isn't difficult to understand: the reason is that people are irrational and quick to anger and often believe crazy things for no good reason. Ta-da.
Posts: 2443 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Pedophiles aren't "inhuman" (if that's what they are) because they give into their sexual desires but because their sexual desires harm innocent children.
And those who have such strong feels about homosexuals could just as easily say homosexuals aren't "inhuman" because they give into their sexual desires but because their sexual desires are harmful to society and totally against God's plan.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged |
Only if we accept the ideas of God and that He has a plan.
Harmful to society is debatable, harmful to the children is not.
I can rationally analyze why one group of people has felt the need to hate another, even if I don't agree with it - sometimes I can even empathize and side with one group or the other.
This is not one of those times.
-Trevor
Edit: As to your point on Law, in US society you can argue the Law doesn't recognize a person's right to be gay, although active measures are not taken to prohibit such behavior.
However, if two grown men or two grown women wish to take sexual pleasure from each other, I still don't care because they are adults and can make their own decisions.
At no point does this excuse adults from raping or otherwise taking advantage of children because the standard is not the same and cannot be applied in two different cases.
quote:Only if we accept the ideas of God and that He has a plan.
Harmful to society is debatable, harmful to the children is not.
Yes, but (I am assuming) these people DO accept those things.
And also... harmful to the children IS debateable. It's been debated by NAMBLA. (sp?) What you mean to say is that YOU don't think it need be debated, and I suspect most who think homosexuals are "inhuman" probably believe the wrongness of homosexuality is beyond debate too.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Harmful to society is debatable, harmful to the children is not.
I wanted to chime in on this particular portion of the discussion. Harmful to children IS debated. NAMBLA and others make their case on a civil rights ground - denying children the ability to choose to have sex.
I think their argument is odious, but it can't be dismissed - it must be refuted (although not here). The general public attitude that sex with children is obviously wrong is what allows these predators to operate on the scale they do.
posted
It's not the attitude that people think sex with children is wrong that causes problems - I think this is the proper attitude to have. Rather, it's the acceptance of this proposition as obvious that causes problems.
This causes two probelms. First, it causes people to seriously underestimate the number of such predators, because they "know" that most everyone agrees with their assessment that sex with children is wrong. If it's "obviously" wrong, then the people who don't agree must be "sick." The problem with this assessent is that it ignores the vast number of people out there who participate in the sexual exploitation of children simply out of greed. Worldwide, there are 1 million children drawn into sexual exploitation each year according to http://www.freethechildren.org/youthinaction/sexual_exploitation.htm -- the numbers are staggering.
Until people start viewing this not as an aberration but instead as a multi-billion dollar business with organized particpants, the framework needed to protect children will not be properly oriented.
The second problem is that denying the humanity of these people makes it harder to stop them and hold them accountable. If someone is inhuman, it means "real humans" can't truly understand them. It means the full force of human intuition and prediction is not brought to bear on apprehending them. De-humanizing them and not investigating their reasons why sex with children is OK makes it harder to understand them, harder to predict what they will do, and harder to defend our children from them.
It also allows NAMBLA to exist in it's cozy world with clear consciences that they are simply helping these children experience pleasures denied them by a cruel world. There lies must be met head on, not dismissed as insanity.
quote: De-humanizing them and not investigating their reasons why sex with children is OK makes it harder to understand them, harder to predict what they will do, and harder to defend our children from them.
Don't you think, though, that there are professionals whose job it is to do this, and who in fact do, and that it's more of the populace at large that simply dismisses them without trying to understand them? In other words, just because our populace at large does not critically examine their pov, does it actually follow that nothing is being done to protect our children in this way?
Also, is the standard line is that pedophilia is an aberration, doesn't saying so make it somewhat true? In other words, does arguing NAMBLA's premises grant them legitimacy, in at least some eyes?
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
As to the professionals, there are such people, although not enough. The problem is that people need to have predictive capability of such things. If they think, "Pedophiles are people who think it's OK to have sex with children," then all the aspects of their understanding of human behavior are available to them in making predictions. If they think, "Pedophiles are inhuman monsters," then they have no basis for predicting behavior. All too often I see statements about molestors such as, "He seemed so normal." That's the point - they are normal, except for one thing. It's a big thing, I'll grant you, but the expectation that molestors are somehow different in identifiable ways makes us all a little more careless in assessing situations where abuse is a possibility. I'm not advocating people be paranoid; I'm simply advocating they don't short-circuit their judgment with overbroad generalizations.
As to the second point, this is a philosophical divide. I've always thought the best response to "bad" speech is more speech. This includes racism, sex with children, and any other topic. The real danger here is that someone with an inclination toward molestation, but who has struggled to avoid doing it based on societal norms and morality, might be convinced by NAMBLA propaganda. There must be some presence that directly refutes them.
quote: All too often I see statements about molestors such as, "He seemed so normal." That's the point - they are normal, except for one thing. It's a big thing, I'll grant you, but the expectation that molestors are somehow different in identifiable ways makes us all a little more careless in assessing situations where abuse is a possibility.
posted
Hold on now.... I'm going to have to disagree with you on the statement that sex with children is obviously wrong. In fact, I would argue there is nothing necessarily morally wrong with it in all cases - or at least not more so than other supposedly "squicky" acts like homosexuality and such. The case of a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old having sex, for instance, should prove this. Yes, there is something legally wrong with that picture, because the law is forced to draw a line somewhere. However, in a practical moral sense, there should be nothing wrong with that situation - I suspect 17-year-olds make choices like that willingly all the time.
This is why, IMHO, the traditional justification for our anti-child-sex laws is easily one of the most irrational justifications in mainstream acceptance these days - which in turn is why it's one of my favorite counterexamples to use when people complain about how other people are irrational. What's bizarre about that traditional justification is that most people insist on claiming child sex is morally wrong in all instances, rather than only in instances where it is in a practical sense rape. And in order to do this, the argument normally is that ALL instances of child sex are, practically speaking, rape - that it is physically impossible for a child to agree to sex.
The problem with this line of argument is that it defies reality pretty directly. It is simply too easy to find a counterexample. The 17-year-old and 19-year-old is a good one. You can legally define that as whatever you want, but in real moral terms there are plenty of relationships between people of those ages that are equal and in no way resemble rape. Another counterexample is the one I gave earlier, involving two children choosing to have sex with one another. This actually happens too - and it simply makes no sense to try to claim they are each raping the other. At the very least one of them must had chosen to do it. Or, if you want an actual case, I can give you one. I had a friend who was 17 and dating a 30-year-old. I considered this rather weird (for one thing, I didn't know how to hang out with 30-year-olds), but their relationship was not unequal. If they had sex, I would have had no doubt that it was mutually accepted. To say my friend was being raped, even if true in a legal sense, would be blatantly false in any real sense.
Now, at that point people traditionally claim it's a matter of law - which is partially true. But we can define laws however we want. We could legally define pi to be 7 if we wanted to, although that would be silly. But we do legally define sex under a certain age as rape. What this does not mean, however, is that it IS rape, in a practical moral sense. What actually is, is regardless of what the law says it is, and the multitude of counterexamples show that it is, in fact, possible for children to have sex without it being rape in a moral sense.
Thus the true reason we have laws against child sex, in my view, is not because child sex is ALWAYS abuse in a moral sense, but because it is abuse far too often to warrant allowing it to be legal. This is the normal reason we ban things. We don't normally say that there can't possibly be a morally legitimate use for owning a bomb, for instance. We ban owning illegal bombs because the legitimate uses are FAR outweighed by the potential abuse from it. We ban drinking and driving not because it ALWAYS leads to crashes, but because it far too often does. This too, I think, is why we ban sex with minors. It's not that sex with minors is by necessity always rape. It's because such behavior is rape far too often to make it legal.
I don't see how NAMBLA could argue against that stance. There's too much evidence of the dangers of legalizing sex with minors.
However, people don't take that stance. Instead, they typically take the more extreme stance - that sex with children is by definition always rape and always wrong. Why do they do this? I have two ideas why...
Firstly, I think people are afraid to leave moral loopholes. They are afraid that if they don't say sex with children is always rape, someone will claim their case is an exception and use that excuse to rape someone. This actually may be true, but I don't think that's a good reason to try and make a more absolute case than there actually is. It's like Democrats who try to argue Bush is absolutely wrong on everything he says. It does not make a better case if you overstate it to the degree that big falsities appear in it - or so I'd argue.
Secondly, I suspect that there is a good bit of "squickiness" factor involved here too. I think that even in a specific hypothetical case where a child wants to have sex as a adult, knows what that means, and chooses to do so - even in that case many people would STILL consider that wrong. Even if in that case no harm was committed to the child. Why would they still think this wrong, if no harm occurred? My suspicion is that it's the same reason people dislike homosexuality even when no harm occurs to any parties - and I'm not saying that that reason's necessarily a bad one (although I disagree with it in the case of homosexuality.) But I think people don't want to admit that that is the way they feel, and so they try to find harm even in the hypothetical unharmful exception.
This is a problem, because such exceptions can occur - like my 17-year-old friend. Was her boyfriend a monster?
quote:And people will offer to debate whether or not the Holocaust actually happened.
And when we stop responding to such offers with evidence and reasoning and start responding with shrill, "If you deny that you're just an anti-semite who doesn't deserve a response," eventually the deniers will begin to go unanswered.
While I doubt there are many Holocaust deniers who are not anti-semitic, refusing to meet their claims leaves them the field unopposed.
posted
The real problem here would be defining the word 'child'. The rape and statutory rape laws are in place for 18-year-olds because that is when, legaly, children 'come of age': They can vote, marry without parental consent, et cetera.
Xap, in the case of your friend, I personally don't think that he was a monster. While I certainly think that it was rather strange, your friend was probably in many ways an adult. As Correlle's father told her when she turned 17: "You're pretty set in your ways, the only thing I can hope now is that I taught you right."
I have seen from experience the statch rape laws in action: A few of my more minor aquaintances from high school had parents who were furious when they found out they were sexually active. It may have been the case that one person was takikng advantage of the other, but it certainly was consentual in all the cases I personally saw unfold. I also know that if Insanity Plea had laid a single finger on me before I turned 18, my father would have called the cops.
You pose an interesting question, Xap, and while initially I didn't see why pedophila was in any way related to homosexuality, it dawned on me that you were trying to make a point, to show that this is the extreme that the guy in free speech alley saw it as.
So here's my honest opinion: Pedophiles who like young (ie: 0-12 or 13) children should be prosecuted. After that, it should be determined on the maturity of the minor. I only say this because I had sexually active friends in middle school, some of which were not mature and were used by their boyfriends, and some of which certainly knew what they were getting themselves into.
I would also like to thank everyone who has posted in this thread for not calling names and keeping a reasonably level head on such a blurred and passionate topic. I would especially like to thank Trevor who bowed out gracefully to give himself time to cool down. This is why I started the thread in the first place--to discuss things objectively.
Thank you, all of you.
Posts: 873 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Keep in mind that statutory rape charges do not apply when two teenagers of similar age have sex. For example, a 16-year-old would not be charged with rape for having sex with a 15-year-old. IIRC, the other condition besides being under 18 is a difference in age of like three years. Another (related) assumption that I see in this thread that I believe is incorrect is that statutory rape laws are merely a statement about a child's ability to give consent. Given what I noted above, they are a statement about an adult's ability to coerce a child. And so, the fact that two 15-year-olds can have sex does not raise any paradoxes, nor does it prove that a teenager (or a child) can give meaningful consent to an adult.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Icarus, that isn't true in all places. I got accused of it when I had just turned 18, and she was 17. Turns out that under the law at that time, if a parent could (and did) claim them as a dependant the age of concent was 18. TSo unless they were willing and able to declare themselves emancipated, and move out...
Funny part of it was that I had never had sex with her at all, and her parents accused me of getting her pregnant because they had never met any of her other boyfirends besides me.
It still scared me to death, though. How do you prove a negitive? Even a paternity test can't help you there.
She had cheated on me, and I found out and broke up with her. We had only been dating for a month or so, but it pissed me off.
Next thing I know I the police call my house (am I was still living with my parents) and ask me to come down to the station for questioning.
She never said it was me, but her parents were SURE ti was me, because we had been dating. Turns out she was pregnant, and wouldn't tell them who the father was.
Eventually I got out of it (she flew into a rage and told them off, thank God), but it left me pretty scared.
I also said the rudest thing I have ever said to anyone to her mom and dad at the police station, after an hour of questioning. lol.
So the laws differ significantly from state to state on that.
Xap: I see your point, but it is too hard to determine it case by case...so if we draw a line, and say this is the point....
Then everyone over it is wrong.
It's no more random than a lot of laws. Then older the kid, the less offensive it is to most of us, but even a mature 13 year old can't fathom the possible repercussions...not really.
Kwea (edited, becasue I left out the dependant rule, which is why they were able to go after me)
posted
The age of consent and details surrounding it vary from state to state. For instance, in Indiana the age of consent is 16.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Technically speaking, pedophilia only applies to the desire to have sex with pre-pubescent children. The desire to have sex with adolescents is called something else. Starts with an “e” I think.
Might not make a substantive difference to the conversation, but there you go.
And also, I’d like to underline what Icky said. The question isn’t really whether the child is old enough to consent. It’s whether the balance of power between the child and the adult is so far off that meaningful consent is unlikely in that situation. It’s the same reason therapists can’t have sex with their clients. It’s not that the clients are intrinsically unable to make decisions for themselves, it’s that the potential for abuse is too great. Likewise in an adult/non-adult relationship – the power differential is such that the potential for abuse is enormous.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
The age of consent for statutory rape charges is a classic line-drawing legal question. Almost everyone agrees there should be one. Most would agree that 10-12 is and below is always worthy of criminal sanction, and most would agree that 18 or over is not.
The 8-6 years in the middle, though, make a significant difference. This is the type of issue where we rely on legislatures to reflect the will of the community.
Add on age difference clauses and there's a lot of room for difference.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)
This upset me even more!![[Cry]](graemlins/cry.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Kiss]](graemlins/kiss.gif)
lets all get along.
