We more than you might expect with Bryan Fischer's latest argument on Idaho legal/education/sex policy. Let's open with excerpts from his Idaho Values Alliance blog:
In many states, including Idaho, sex outside marriage is against the law, and that includes consensual sex between teenagers. Sex outside marriage, whether “fornication” or “adultery” from a legal standpoint, is punishable by both a fine and imprisonment.
Yet educating teens about the legal risks they run if they become sexually active before marriage is a topic that is rarely if ever discussed in sex ed classes. I’m guessing educators show less restraint in making students aware of the legal risks of drunk driving or possession of drugs, but common sense dictates that making young adults aware that their behavior is not only dangerous but also illegal ought to be a part of a thorough education. . . .
Most teens and many parents in Idaho are most likely unaware that consensual teenage sex is a crime. Idaho lawmakers adjusted our sex offender statutes to include a “Romeo and Juliet” exception that keeps a young man who is a statutory rapist from being required to register as a sex offender, but when a male of any age – including a teenager - has sex with a girl under the age of 18 he is guilty of rape under Idaho law, whether the sex was consensual or not. Idaho law requires that he be sent to prison for no less than one year.
Fischer's point that sex outside marriage violates Idaho law is correct (see most specifically the law against fornication), also that the law is rarely enforced (there have been a few occasions) and he probably is right too that relatively few Idahoans know any of this.
We have strongly believed for a long time that a basic crash course in law - civil and criminal, law as it affects ordinary people moving through society - for a semester or two ought to be a basic component of public education at the high school level. The idea that we're supposedly educating a corps of citizens who derive most of what they know about the law from TV shows is appalling. We'd not argue at all with Fischer's suggestion that the law as it relates to sex might be a slice of that course.
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