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9 tweets,
2 min read
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Statutory rape laws don't make it illegal for 15-year-olds to have sex. They make it illegal for adults to have sex with 15-year-olds. How are you confused by this?
I mean, there's a hundred problems with his argument, but that's kind of the big one.
For the record, I take Dershowitz at his word here that he's making a legal/constitutional argument here, not a moral one, not least because "Actually, it's good to have sex with kids!" is a position I think he's smart enough not to take at this point in his career.
The legal/constitutional argument he's making, however, really is stupid. Profoundly, painfully stupid.
Definitely time for me to read the New Yorker profile.
Since a bunch of people have brought this up, yes, laws vary. But the essence of statutory rape laws, and the essence of Dershowitz's objection to them in the op-ed, is that they criminalize adults having sex with young people, not that they criminalize young people having sex.
(You can write a statutory rape law that leaves it legal for two people below the age of consent to have sex with each other, and many jurisdictions have, historically and today.)
Also, while I'm up, yes, he argues for an age of consent of 16 in the tweet I QTed. But in the op-ed he's defending, he suggests that the age of consent should be 15, perhaps even 14. That's why I used 15 as my example in my tweet.
I’d like to take a moment to thank the hundreds and hundreds of people who’ve taken time out of their busy lives to let me know that Alan Dershowitz is not confused.
