California Lawmakers Place More Children, Teens in Path of Sexual Predators

Teens and children will soon be more vulnerable to sexual predators now that the California legislature has approved a bill that would relax sex-offender registry requirement for acts of sodomy with minors, according to the American Family Association (AFA, afa.net), which advocates from biblical principles for the rights and benefits of the nuclear family.

If Gov. Gavin Newsom signs Senate Bill 145, adults who are less than 10 years older than a minor with whom they are convicted of having relations would no longer be automatically added to the sex-offender registry. The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Scott Wiener, touted the bill as a way to curb “discrimination against LGBTQ youth.”

AFA Executive Vice President Ed Vitagliano says the bill represents the blindness and the twisted sexual ethic that have increasingly eroded the state’s moral culture and ruined lives over the past several years.

“Leave it to morally regressive California to go in the absolutely worst direction on every sexual issue,” Vitagliano said. “It is morally reprehensible for any adult to have sex with a minor––whether the adult is heterosexual or homosexual. This is yet another disgrace to be placed at the feet of the sexual radicals on the Left Coast.”

Wiener, a gay politician, introduced the bill in 2019 as a means of righting a wrong against LGBTQ youth who are “forced onto the registry for consensual sex … in situations where straight youth are not,” according to a tweet by Wiener on Sept. 1.

California law requires adults to register as sex offenders if they engage in sexual activity with a minor. Judges may decide whether an adult male who is 10 years older or less than a teenage girl with whom he has intercourse should be registered as a sex offender. Weiner’s bill would expand the decision-making domain of judges, allowing them to decide whether to place an adult on the sex-offender registry if a teenager between 14 and 17 years old has [other types of sexual relations] with that adult.

This change, suggests Sen. Wiener, would end “discrimination” that “destroys lives,” even though minors cannot legally consent to sex in California.

Vitagliano says instead of ending discrimination, California lawmakers left vulnerable youths more exposed to being sexually violated.

“What the legislature should have done was close the loophole for straight adults rather than give homosexual predators the same option for a free pass,” Vitagliano said. {eoa}

For more than 40 years, AFA has operated within the mission to inform, equip and activate individuals to strengthen the moral foundations of American culture and give aid to the church here and abroad in its task of fulfilling the Great Commission. Visit AFA Action Alerts here.

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