December 17, 2003
SOCIETY’S SECOND QUESTION IS WHY DIDN’T THEIR FATHERS KILL HIM.
A 19-year-old baseball star whose sensational trial on charges of inciting oral sex from two adolescent girls shocked Prince Edward Island will find out today whether he will be sent to prison.In his first interview since his conviction, Cass Rhynes told CanWest News Service he is not the sex-obsessed predator many consider him to be. "I'm not some kind of sexual predator," he said this week. "I'm a virgin. Sex is not on my priority list. I've got way too much else going on." [...]
However, he also suggested the girls were not simply unwitting victims. Why, he asks, would adolescent girls know anything about oral sex in the first place, let alone be interested in it? He says that is a question the girls' families, and society, need to ask themselves.
"What happened was that I made a mistake. We all make mistakes. It just happens that this one was pretty big," he said. "I was in the wrong place at the wrong time -- and morally, I made a mistake, but legally, I didn't." [...]
She(the judge) said when Rhynes received oral sex early this year from two girls, aged 12 and 13, he failed to "take all reasonable steps" to find out if the girls were over the legal age of 14. She also said Rhynes knew he would be getting sex from the girls when he agreed to meet them, and was not simply "a passive recipient of sexual advances by an aggressive child."
Rhynes has filed an appeal, to be heard in March. A decision to uphold his conviction could irreparably harm any chance he has of playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who drafted him this spring. A criminal record would make it almost impossible to travel to the United State
A very funny mimic of Nixon during the Watergate scandal had him insisting he took full responsibility for his actions, but not the blame. The difference, he said, was that one who took the blame lost his job, while one who took responsibility did not. So it is with the Kobe Bryants and Cass Rhynes of this world, who rush to admit they are moral trash all the while insisting there should be no consequences and that the women and girls they exploit and assault are really to blame.
Posted by Peter Burnet at December 17, 2003 10:41 AMThat kid is just a few years ahead of society,OJ.
In a decade you'll be prosecuted for hate speech for critisizing something like this.Just ask the ACLU.
blame vs. responsibility--
Let's not forget all the times various Clinton cabinet members and officials (General Reno's statements after the glorious victory in the Battle of Waco comes first to mind) took responisbility for something and suffered no consequences.
Raoul,you're right.
In America,the Clinton case established as a priniple of law that oral sex is not sex.
Pity Canada is not so enlightened.
This all stems from the fact that Svend Robinson, the openly gay Member of Parliament, instigated the lowering of the Age of Consent in Canada to 14so that he and his buddies could indulge in their fantasies without fear of being jailed.
So how surprised should anyone be when the actions of some idiots involve 12 and 13 year-old girls?
Posted by: Oswald Czolgosz at December 17, 2003 1:09 PMAs surprised as those who insisted that gay marriage wouldn't encourage alternative hipsters to use the same arguments to rationalize their own arrangments.
Posted by: M. at December 17, 2003 1:30 PMHmmm. Wasn't all that long ago when the age of consent was 13.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at December 18, 2003 7:18 AMHmmm. Wasn't all that long ago that certain secularists on this site were arguing kids of this age couldn't really consent.
Posted by: Peter B at December 18, 2003 8:52 AMOJ:
That is as may be. The fact still remains.