A friend of mine always compares sex offender laws to witch hunts. He's not the only one. This is a great article that should be read before passing any sex offender laws. Read on...
Take, for example, sex offenders. Can you think of a more despicable, detestable, disgusting crime How can anyone take such advantage of a child How can anyone do such a thing to a helpless woman And of course we would never convict an innocent person. A child could never lie or be manipulated to lie or misinterpret an event. We would never use any sort of psychological coercion to extract a confession from one of our citizens. We would never threaten someone with more jail time and certain financial ruin if they did not take a plea deal. We would never assume one was guilty and make them prove their innocence in a court of law. We would never entrap anyone. We would never convict some kid who was having consensual sex with another kid. We would never convict some little kid for a sex offense because he decides to do something childish. We could never become so frightened of these men as to banish them from our society. We would never force entire families to move from their home simply because it was situated too close to some sanctified location. We would never punish an entire family like that because of what one of their relatives did. We could never believe myths such as that a man is unable to be cured of a condition, that a human being is unable to change. We could never pass laws and regulations that would under normal circumstances be considered unconstitutional and declare them legal simply because we are so afraid that some old men have some sort of magical power to be able to entice young ladies to their beds. We are far more understanding than that. We realize that some people may under certain circumstances do something they would not normally do. We understand that a man may make a one time mistake. We have learned to take these things into consideration when prosecuting them and understand it is best to let a learned judge make an assessment of all aspects of the entire case and make a determination as to appropriate punishment or restitution. We have learned to balance justice with the law, retribution with fairness. We would never let hysteria dictate to us that a one size fits all punishment is fair and appropriate. We left that kind of thinking behind long ago when our founding fathers wrote the constitution protecting us all from the tyranny of government. We left that kind of thinking behind three hundred years ago when we realized just how unjust we were for executing witches.
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