Legal Age For Homosexuals

Thinking maturely about the Christian faith

Search

// you’re reading...

Apologetics

Legal Age For Homosexuals

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ October 6, 2003 ⋅ Post a comment

Subject: Re: Legal Age ffor Homosexuals
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 00:50:18 GMT
From: (Nigel B. Mitchell)
Reply-To:
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian,aus.religion,nz.soc.religion
In <>, Rowland Croucher wrote:
>LEGAL AGE FOR HOMOSEXUALS MUST NOT BE LOWERED TO 16
>The NSW Council of Churches has again come out in strong opposition
>to renew proposals to lower the legal age for male homosexuality to
>sixteen years.

What a shame!

The age of consent for homosexual sex should be the same as it is for
heterosexual sex. It is as simple as that.

The implications in this article that there is some sort of agenda of
predatory pedophilia behind the calls for the lowering of the age of
consent are insulting and ridiculous. _If_ that were true (and I don’t
believe for a moment that it is), surely the same thing would apply to
pedophiles who prey on young girls as well.

>”Psychologists are quick to advise us that young males mature
>emotionally slower than girls and that at age 16, while they are
>capable of physical sexual activity, their emotional maturity to cope
>with the Sensitive demands of a relationship is, in the main,
>lacking.”

_If_ that is a sensible argument, why isn’t the NSW Council of
Churches calling for the raising of the age of consent for
heterosexual sex? Perhaps 16 for girls and 18 for boys would be a good
level?

Of course, it is obvious how stupid these arguments are when you stop
and think that for most of human history, most people have married
and/or become sexually active within a couple of years of the onset of
puberty. It is only in the past 300 years or so that this has widely
changed, and then only in European societies and their descendants.

In the late 20th century the availablility of contraception has broken
the nexus between (heterosexual) sexual activity and childbirth, and
we are in the middle of a period which is probably going to take
several generations of working out how to live in this new
environment. Most of us (although apparently not the NSW Council of
Churches) have also realised that homosexuality is not an evil
influence in society, nor is it an illness or a form of dementia. It
is just the way some people (5 to 25% of the population, depending on
what statistics you read) are. The inescapable conclusion from the
weight of psychological and biological evidence, from a Christian POV,
must be that God ‘makes’ some of us that way.

The world will be a better place when we remove all legal statutes
which discriminate between heterosexual and homosexual activity as
though the latter were some sort of perversion or abnormality. The
Church should take a lead in this process – not set itself up as a
reactionary and wowserish critic.

>He said, “The churches want the government to either maintain the
>status quo or, if there was to be any change, to increase the age of
>consent for females to eighteen bringing it into a parity with that
>currently in place for males.”

Given that something like 2/3 young people are sexually active by the
age of 16, this is naive and pointless.

The age of consent for heterosexual sex should be the same as for
homosexual sex. There is no logical or theological reason for making
it otherwise.

_If_ the concerns about pedophilia are real, and not just an excuse to
gay-bash, perhaps the NSW Council of Churches should call for an
amendment to the legislation so that sexual activity (homosexual or
heterosexual) between people more than 2 years apart in age, where one
of the participants is under 18, is illegal. I think there would be
some support for that, although it would be difficult to police.

>NSW Council of Churches
>E-mail:
>Web Site: http://www.nswchurches.com
>Postmail: P.O. Box 321, Beverley Hills NSW 2209

I have emailed these comments to the address shown, and I encourage
others to do so.