Let’s say, just hypothetically, that you arranged a legal transaction with a person who turned out to be immoral, abusive, felonious. Now suppose after years of attempting to do your best to hang on to the relationship you are forced into the difficult decision of protecting yourself–from abuse.
Now consider two potential wrinkles to this scenario:
You are a child and your “legal partner” is an adult.
Or….
You are a parent and your “legal partner” is a dangerous minor.
In the first scenario children are at the mercy of a legal system that does not want to intervene on their behalf. Why? Money, Oh, and maybe discomfort. But there is a third option–older people get significantly reduced sentences or no punishment at all for serious or deadly crimes against children because children do not have equal protection under the law.
They do not have equivalent civil rights.
And parents of mentally ill or abusive teens? Just try finding legal protection from abuse. It would make sense to simply call the police when a crime occurs, but parents are on their own if their abuser is their own child.
The law should be the arena of protection for a civilized society, but the murders of Thomas More and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were legal. We are not only as good as the laws we enact; we are only as just as the ones we choose to enforce.
Immoral laws, immoral judges, and myopic citizens make for a country where a baby can be shot in the face on the street and a distracted nation thinks it is a brave new world for futzing over the sexual practices of adults.
Oh, yeah…Brave New World.. Thank you, Mr. Huxley, for giving us all a prophetic heads up on how all this will end.
