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Romeo and Juliet, Abraham and Isaac: Who to criminalize?

While waiting yesterday in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee hearing for a late bill on which I was testifying, Rep. Garnet Coleman brought forward two very interesting pieces of legislation worthy of note:HB 3564: Relating to the prosecution of certain conduct constituting the offense of indecency with a child.HB 2973: Relating to the insanity defense in a criminal case.HB 3564 would expand the "Romeo and Juliet" defense (consensual sexual partners are within three years of one another's age) to indecency with a child to include gay relationships, or as Rep. Debbie Riddle put it, adding a "Romeo and Romeo" exception.Throughout all the discussion of the "Romeo and Juliet" exception to the so-called "Jessica's Law" in 2007, that oversight certainly never occurred to me, and I watched the process pretty closely...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on April 02, 2009 (boomark / email).