The California legislature passed a law this week that relaxes requirements for sex offender registry for sodomy and other acts with minors.
California State Senator Scott Wiener (D) introduced the bill, SB 145 last month. It gives judges more flexibility when sentencing gay adult men who have engaged in sexual contact with underage boys.
Under SB 145, adults who are less than 10 years older than the minor, who are convicted of having anal or oral sex with that minor, would not be automatically added to the sex-offender registry.
Current law holds that adults must register as sex offenders if they are convicted of having anal or oral sex with a minor, although a judge has the discretion to not place an adult male less than 10 years older than the minor on the registry if the adult is a male and the minor is a female.
In 2015, the California Supreme Court argued that vaginal intercourse can lead to pregnancy and that requiring a father to register as a sex offender may inhibit his ability to support his child and find a job through social stigmatization.
Judges do not have the same discretion when both the adult and minor are males. Wiener, who is gay, calls that discrepancy “horrific homophobia.”
“I cannot in my mind as a mother understand how sex between a 24-year-old and a 14-year-old could ever be consensual, how it could ever not be a registrable offense,” Democratic California state Rep. Lorena Gonzalez said. “We should never give up on this idea that children should be in no way subject to a predator.”
“SB 145 ends discrimination against #LGBTQ young people on the sex offender registry,” Weiner wrote in a tweet. “Currently, these youth are forced onto the registry for consensual sex — even if a judge doesn’t think it’s appropriate — in situations where straight youth are not. This discrimination destroys lives.”
6. #SB145 ends discrimination against #LGBTQ young people on the sex offender registry. Currently, these youth are forced onto the registry for consensual sex — even if a judge doesn’t think it’s appropriate — in situations where straight youth are not. https://t.co/vjLVet0psI
— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) September 1, 2020
Read more at CitizensJournal.us
Photo by Pax Ahimsa Gethen