Top California Democrats Fight To Protect Purchasing Sex With Kids
Calvin Sherman
Should it be a felony to purchase an underage minor for illegal sex?
For most of us, the answer is a very easy yes. This is not a hard one. You will likely encounter three dozen questions today or tomorrow that will be considerably more difficult to answer. Generally, if someone is asked if there should be severe legal penalties for underage sex trafficking, the response is an immediate, unhesitating affirmative.
Democrats in California feel differently. The state assembly there this past week considered a bill — AB-379 — that would have amended state law to make it a felony to solicit paid sex from “any person under 18 years of age.” In other words, if you seek out and pay a minor for sex — if you engage in child sex trafficking — you would be guilty of a felony.
This should have been an easy move for the assembly; the debate should have taken about 30 seconds and ended with a unanimous vote, passage to the state senate, and a quick signature by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The ink should have still been drying on the bill by suppertime on Wednesday.
Democrats were not so obliging. In fact, they mounted a major opposition to the bill. By the time they were done with it, the bill’s protections for 16-year-old sex crime victims had been stripped from the measure. Democrats added language claiming it was “the intent of the Legislature to adopt the strongest laws to protect 16- and 17-year old victims.” Which is strange since, when given the opportunity to do just that, they refused.
What reason could Democrats have for opposing the bill? Advocates in no small part seemed concerned that the measure could disproportionately affect … LGBT Californians. (Really stop and think about that for a minute.) The ACLU of Southern California claimed in part that similar measures “have been used disproportionately against … LGBTQ+ individuals.” Other opponents of the bill claimed that the measure could be used by parents who are upset that their children are in “LGBTQ relationships.”