[lbo-talk] Re: Studds

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 10/5/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Oct 5, 2006, at 6:37 AM, Robert Naiman wrote:
>
> > Which is another way of saying: the issue is hypocrisy.
> >
> > Americans don't care if you're gay, as long as you're straight
> > about it.
>
> It also depends on your constituency - Studds & Frank from Mass,
> Foley from Fla. Dem voters are less likely to care, while many Reps
> think queers should burn in hell.
>
> Doug

That's all true, but would a Democrat today hardass it like Studds if
it came out that he had sex with a teenage page (Studd's page was 17*,
and sex in question happened in the 1970s)?  Since then, laws,
ideologies, etc. about age and sex and sex and employment have
changed.

* Cf.
<http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/sex.html#18>
Child Under Eighteen

M.G.L. c.272, sec. 4. Inducing person under 18 to have sexual intercourse.

Whoever induces any person under 18 years of age of chaste life to
have unlawful sexual intercourse shall be punished by imprisonment in
the state prison for not more than three years or in a jail or house
of correction for not more than two and one-half years or by a fine of
not more than $1,000 or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Analogous to Federal laws 18 USC 2422
<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2422.html> and 18 USC 2423
<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2423.html>.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
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