When I heard about Genarlow Wilson, who had his 10-year prison sentence overturned for having consensual oral sex when he was 17-years-old with a 15-year-old female, I was flabbergasted and astounded. First, because of the length, second, because it took two and a half years to overturn the sentence, and third, because I hadn’t heard about it before. When the sentence was first passed, it should have caused a firestorm. This case typifies almost every idiocy of the United States federal and state criminal justice systems. In our constant haste to show, by authoritarian force, how we are allegedly tough on crime, we weld our laws to impose our fanatical religious excesses and our bias ridden philosophies on the immature, impoverished and impaired. Often, it is not the blind matron of Liberty, with her equal scales of justice being held up to the multitudes, that best symbolizes our sense of fairness. Instead, it is the many-eyed, bloated black widow who is discriminately spewing out sticky webs to entrap and imprison all who are unfortunate enough to have blundered into her traps to be bundled up, stung, and stored away to have their life slowly sucked away.
Genarlow’s 10-year prison sentence is a stark example of Georgia’s, if not the Nation’s, religious and racial bigotry. Passing draconian laws to control the human race’s sexual proclivities because of our religious zealotry is like trying to control a fistful of slime by squeezing it more tightly in your hand. The harder you squeeze the more dismal will be your loss of control. While, as a society, we certainly need some boundaries to curb the dangerous sexual excesses of the few, we do not need to crucify the handful of the millions who engage in a youthful, or even adult indiscretion and are caught. The truth is there are perhaps hundreds if not thousands of thousands that have engaged in some sexual activities that would, when acknowledged publically, be deemed inappropriate by the "moral majority." This alleged "moral majority" needs to again learn the lesson that Jesus gave the world when he rescued the adulteress from stoning. I am confident that the same Jesus would stand at Genarlow’s side and many of the other alleged criminals crushed by our system of mandatory minimums and ridiculously long prison sentences. This punishment is meted out by those in authority who, if they were honest, are not without sin and, therefore, not worthy to cast such an unforgiving and unmerciful stone.
Some may think that Genarlow’s case is a single anomaly of things gone horribly wrong. It is not. It could never have happened without the combined effort of hundreds of religious extremists and secretly racist zealots in the Georgia State legislative, executive, and judiciary branches of government who have joined forces to promulgate, enforce, prosecute, and impose a law that would knowingly be selectively used against black Americans and other disfavored minorities and groups. Now, how can I make such a claim when the law is religiously and racially neutral? I can because, while the dictator of Iran may claim there are no homosexuals in Iran, and the elite in Georgia may claim there are no other 17-year-old men that have had consensual sex with 15-year-old women, every honest human being who has knowingly experienced this life with their eyes fully open and their ears fully engaged (no matter how "pure" their own lives) know this is just not the case. The only reason it may appear so is, because in Iran any homosexual who dares reveal his or her orientation is murdered; and in Georgia you can bet when some elite white law enforcement officer’s child is caught in the act, discretion is exercised by quietly looking the other way. Intuition would also indicate that, although it was not said, Georgians most likely passed such a law to wield against any black American who dared touch a white woman. In essence, if they couldn’t get away with lynching, then a mandatory 10-year sentence could maybe pass under the radar (which it apparently did).
The other issue brought to the front by the Genarlow case is the fallacy, in its current day application, that statutory rape and statutory sexual abuse laws can be wholly justified without serious question. These laws often impose unduly harsh sentences for engaging in sex with a minor even though there is not a great disparity in age of the participants and the female was honestly perceived for being of adult age. Also, most of these laws are imposed, either explicitly or by implementation, against only the male partner of the consensual sex. This is not appropriate.
The notion that consent when given by a minor child to engage in sex or that a mis-perception of the age of one’s partner in consensual sex should not drastically mitigate the consequences is unjustifiable. Moreover, the additional cultural sentiment that the minor female never bears responsibility for consensual sex sends the wrong message and is inequitable.
As an attorney, I have encountered many cases in which the female partner’s choices, actions, and own criminality, were equal too, if not more condemnable than her male partner. In such cases, should not society be as equally concerned about redirecting the female participant as well as the male? Additionally, there is a great difference in a male who knowingly pursues and entices an underage female into engaging in sexual relations than a male who honestly believes he is having sex with an adult who is fully capable of understanding the consequences of her choices. In short, instead of disintegrating into a revengeful society bent on metaphorical lynching and stoning, as Bill O’Reilly has said, we need a fair and balanced approach in our laws that attempt to manage human sexuality within reasonable boundaries without creating criminals of all who are unwilling or unable to adhere to our religious and moral views on human sexuality.
Loren M. Lambert
November 6, 2007 ©
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