Don’t just raise age of consent; close loopholes

SO NOW OUR legislators are shocked — shocked — to learn that it’s perfectly legal in South Carolina for 21-year-old men to have sex with 16-year-old girls. Well, the good news is that many of them now say they’re determined to change that — even if it did take the salacious allegations that a Ware Shoals teachers hooked up the cheerleaders in her charge with her boyfriend’s pals in the National Guard to awaken legislators to the effects of their own decisions.

But merely changing the age of consent from 16 to 18 won’t do a lot of good unless the Legislature also changes the law that many legislators were shocked to learn they passed last year that pretty much made our whole underage sex law a joke.

Not to be too cynical, but most of the people in our Legislature today are the same people who just last spring voted to further lower the age of consent in some cases, making it legal for 14- and 15-year-olds to have sex with anyone younger than 19. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they also decided to let at least some if not all adults argue as a defense that they didn't realize the person they had sex with was too young to do so legally.

Most lawmakers insist they knew nothing about those changes either, until after they were on the books, and we’re sure that in many cases that’s true. But that is no excuse. This wasn’t a case where someone cleverly hid the changes in technical language so no one would notice; lowering the age of consent was openly debated in committee. Legislators simply passed the bill without asking questions. Apparently, too many of them would be shocked to learn that they have an obligation to actually know what it is they’re voting on.

So let’s make this as simple as possible. It should not be the policy of South Carolina to invite 14-year-olds to have sex, no matter how old or young their partner. It should not be the policy of South Carolina to invite 16-year-olds, or 17-year-olds for that matter, to have sex. It should not be the policy of South Carolina to allow adults to use mistake-of-age as a defense for having sex with children; exploitation of children is the very last area where we should consider letting people claim that they were deceived into breaking the law.

The policy of South Carolina should be to prohibit minors from having sex with anyone, and to severely punish any adult who has sex with them, no matter how old they may look or claim to be. It might be difficult — perhaps even counterproductive — to prosecute 17-year-olds for having sex with each other, but it still needs to be illegal. The main reason the state steps in and sets such limits is not to send kids to prison; it’s to back up parents by sending the most powerful message it can that it is not acceptable for kids to have sex.

And while they’re raising the age of consent and fixing the mess they made last year, lawmakers ought to consider whether our laws provide for sufficient punishment for adults who abuse their positions of trust. The overwhelming majority of teachers, coaches, club leaders and other authority figures in our state would never dream of taking advantage of the children entrusted to their care; but we need to make sure that we deal harshly with those few who do.