Kaitlyn Hunt Statutory Rape Case: Is it Homophobia or Equal Justice Under The Law?

In Florida the "Age of Consent, "the age at which a person is deemed by Florida law to be capable of consenting to, and engaging in, sexual acts is 16.  This case is about an 18-year-old being arrested for having sexual contact with a 14-year-old.

If this was about an eighteen-year-old boy and a fourteen-year-old girl there would be little question about the proceedings, but in this case both the victim and the offender are both female so the case as become cause célèbre for the liberal community.

As described by Stacy McCain:

But it’s consensual! And . . . equality!

Also, Kaitlyn Hunt — the lesbian charged with two counts of felony lewd and lascivious battery on a child — is a blonde who’s kinda cute, and who could object to cute blonde teenage lesbians? Here’s a local news video:

While some readers may be struggling to resist the temptation to Google “blonde + teen + lesbian,” let me remind you sick freaks that if you were to download photos or videos of what Kaitlyn Hunt is charged with doing to a 14-year-old girl, that would be a federal crime.

If the feds could send you disgusting perverts to prison for those photos, how do the enlightened minds at Think Progress manage to portray the perpetrator of these acts as a victim of bigotry?

Because it was “a consensual, same-sex relationship,” that’s why!

Also, Kaitlyn’s mom (who apparently can’t spell “zealot”) says that the parents of the 14-year-old who pressed charges are “out to destroy my daughter [because] they feel like my daughter ‘made’ their daughter gay,” and these “bigoted, religious” parents “see being gay as a sin and wrong, and they blame my daughter.”

Does it really matter that both are female? Or is this all about a 14-year-old not having the maturity to make those kind of decisions and an 18-year-old who should know better.

“The first time occurred in the bathroom of the W wing at Sebastian High School. [The 14-year-old] stated that they sent text messages to each other to meet in the bathroom. [The 14-year-old] and Kaitlyn went into a bathroom stall and started kissing. Kaitlyn then took [the 14-yea-old’s] pants off and put her finger inside of [the 14-year-old’s] vagina.”

The case has generated a good bit of Internet buzz for understandable reasons. There’s sex involved  along with loud cries of injustice from the family of Kaitlyn Hunt, supported by the liberal community. There is a "free Kate" movement (and official hashtag).

Hunt's  father has taken to the Internet in a search for sympathy, posting a petition on Change.org calling on Assistant State Attorney Brian Workman to “stop the prosecution of an 18-year-old girl in a same-sex relationship.”

If Hunt was my daughter, I would probably do the same.  But if the victim was my daughter I would probably act like the victim's parents, Jim and Laurie Smith in this interview:

“We are not the type of people to go in front of the media,” said Laurie Smith.

First, let’s set the facts straight. Kate was not 17, their daughter not 15.

“Our daughter was 14, and this girl was 18,” said Jim Smith.

The Smiths are portrayed by the Hunt Family as going to the law first.

“It’s not the way it was. It was quite different. We had actually told Miss Hunt that this was wrong,” Laurie told CBS12′s Jana Eschbach.

But, according to the Smiths Kate was warned, not once, but twice to stop.
“Another adult, a mother, came to me and said ‘Ms. Smith you need to know this…we told Miss Hunt to leave your daughter alone. But they are in a relationship, and she’s 18.’ 18? My daughter is only 14,” Laure said.

Their 14-year-old began to act out, and one weekend morning they opened her door and she was gone.

It wasn't just a case of an 18-year-old and a 14-year-old, but a case where the 18-year-old was warned to stay away from the underage victim but refused. Last week Ms Hunt was offered a plea deal which would included a lesser charge of child abuse, two years of house arrest and one year of probation--she turned it down.

There are three separate questions that need to be answered in this controversy.

1. Should the case be treated differently because both the perpetrator and the victim were both female?  No-we are guaranteed equal justice under the law.
2. Was the law Broken? The answer to that is an unequivocal yes.
3. If convicted, when sentencing should the Judge take into account the mitigating factor that the perpetrator was only 18 and the relationship was consensual? Before answering this one allow me to point out that (much to my late mother's chagrin) I am not an attorney and my only experiences with the law was the Business Law class I took in grad school a very long time ago.  IMHO the judge cannot take into account that the relationship is consensual because under Florida law the victim is too young, and does not have the mental capacity  to give her consent. On the other hand the perpetrator is barely considered a legal adult herself. This Judge (all judges) should take into account the entirety of the circumstances surrounding the case when/if Ms. Hunt is sentenced.

Ms. Hunt should not spend 15 years in jail for her offense. Most 18-year-olds do stupid things but most of them do not involve sexual contact with a young girl. Despite what the liberal community is saying Hunt did break the law and she did ignore warnings to stay away from the 14-year-old.  What would the liberal community be saying if the ages were the same but the perpetrator was male? What if the perpetrator and the victim were adults but the victim had a form of mental retardation and only had the mental capacity of a 14-year-old?

Hunt should be convicted, however the plea deal seemed like a fair sentence, and justice would best be served if her final sentence was not much more than the deal she was offered.