Anonymous on the case of lesbian girl charged with statutory rape. [View all]

[BainsBane]

"When Florida high school student Kaitlyn Hunt was 17, she began dating a 15-year-old teammate on her school's girls' basketball team. Kaitlyn's parents say the parents of the 15-year-old never complained to them about the (consensual) relationship. But a few months after Kaitlyn turned 18, the younger girl's parents had her arrested. She was charged with a felony—"sexual battery on a person 12-16 years old." The girl's parents also succeeded in getting her expelled from school by appealing to the school board after the school and a judge refused to grant their request, according to Kaitlyn's mother, Kelly Hunt Smith. . . .

Enter Anonymous, the global hacker collective, which recently has raised eyebrows by pursuing justice for rape victims. In this case, some of the same Anonymous members are rallying behind a girl they feel has been wrongly accused of sexual misconduct. On Sunday, they launched the twitter hashtag #OPJustice4Kaitlyn, and a press release that begins: "Greetings, bigots." . . .

By this afternoon, protestors had already gathered outside of the office of the Indian River County Sheriff's Department. In a hastily assembled press conference, County Sheriff Deryle Loar claimed that the case had nothing to do with the fact that Kaitlyn had been dating a girl. "If this was an 18-year-old male and a 14-year-old girl," he said, "it would be prosecuted in the same way." . . .

Anonymous has a complicated relationship with sex and gender issues. Historically, the group has embraced homophobic language, most often by appending the term "fag" to anything that it dislikes—i.e., a "moral fag" is someone who takes his causes too seriously. On the other hand, Anonymous has significant number of gay members, according to McGill University anthropologist Gabriella Coleman, who is writing a book about the group. "It is kind of an extreme commitment to free speech," she says. "And it is also a way of being open to anyone."

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/05/anynonymous-defends-teen-charged-felony-lesbian-relationship

So is this really just applying statutory rape cases evenly? The relationship was legal the day before Kaitlyn's 18th birthday. What prompted the younger girl's parents to go to authorities after Kaitlyn turned 18, yet never raise the issue with Kaitlyn's parents prior to that point? Is this really what statutory rape laws are meant to enforce?