TUCSON, AZ- It’s unknown if there is something in the water in Arizona. H
owever on the same day Law Enforcement Today reported that state’s Department of Education was pushing a program claiming three-month-old’s were racist white supremacists, now an Arizona lawmaker is coming out in opposition to stricter punishment for pedophiles, claiming it would harm people of color, the Post Millennial reports.
Arizona bill HB-2889 would raise sentences of convicted child molesters and rapists to mandatory life in jail. That seems pretty reasonable to us.
The bill is sponsored by Republican Rep. Leo Biasiucci from Lake Havasu City in the state.
Under current law, a child sex offender in Arizona faces anywhere from 10 to 20 years in prison—with the potential for probation, parole, or work release. However not everyone, one legislator in particular, supports stricter punishment for convicted sex criminals.
A Democrat (go figure), Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley, who represents a district which includes Tucson was the only legislator who voted against the bill last Monday.
“If our justice system were fair, the prison population would reflect the country’s population in terms of race and ethnicity,” Hannley wrote on Facebook. “We all know that people of color are disproportionately imprisoned in this country.”
What Hannley loses sight of is the fact that people of color offend at a much higher rate than whites and Hispanics, therefore it stands to reason that there would be more people of color in jails and prisons.
For example an article in Psychology Today showed that while blacks comprise less than thirteen percent of the total US population, they represent half of all murder victims and offenders in the US. Therefore it stands to reason that there would be more blacks locked up than whites. It’s a simple matter of statistics.
Hannley, a 69-year-old progressive posted a video which explained her opposition to the bill, saying, “Why would I vote against this bill? Because we know that the justice system in the United States is not colorblind.”
Hannley did acknowledge that the fact the bill addressed child sexual abuse made it a “tough subject.” However she was more concerned with the importance of abolishing mandatory sentencing no matter the nature of the crime.
“If you’re against mandatory sentencing, you’re against mandatory sentencing,” Hannley said, while noting that her goal is to reduce incarceration numbers.
The bill states:
“A person who is at least eighteen years of age and who is convicted of a dangerous crime against children in the first degree involving sexual assault of a minor who is twelve years of age or younger or sexual conduct with a minor who is twelve years of age or younger shall be sentenced to life imprisonment.”
The continues that:
“A person who is sentenced for a dangerous crime against children in the first degree pursuant to this section is not eligible for suspension of sentence, probation, pardon or release from confinement on any basis except as specifically authorized by section 31-233, subsection A or B until the sentence imposed by the court has been served or commuted.”
Additionally, the bill would also apply to other forms of physical crimes against children such as kidnapping, human trafficking, and violence.”
Hannley referred to herself previously as the “Bernie Sanders of Tucson with Hillary Clinton’s gender issues” when she launched a successful 2016 campaign where she beat in incumbent Democrat in a primary.
Hannley was the only legislator who voted against the bill, which passed the house 51-1 on Monday. The bill will be elevated to the state Senate sometime in the next few weeks.
Hannley is just another among progressives who are somehow seeing pedophilia not as a crime but as some type of psychological illness, and many in Democrat circles also claim that prosecution of pedophiles is somehow rooted in white supremacy.
According to National File, a lawmaker in California introduced legislation in that state last year which would prevent only LGBT child sex offenders from being placed in the sex offender registry, as we previously reported in Law Enforcement Today.
For more on that report, we invite you to:
DIG DEEPER
This editorial is brought to you by a former police officer and current staff writer for Law Enforcement Today
SAN FRANCISCO, CA- Push…push…nudge…nudge. This was entirely predictable actually.
When the Supreme Court blessed gay marriage, many people thought that it was only a matter of time where that would not be enough.
Recently we saw the Civil Rights Act of 1964 expanded to include the “t” in LGBTQ. Now, a state senator in California is trying to destigmatize gay sex between young adults and minors.
He argues that the present state law which governs the state’s sex offender registry unfairly discriminates against the LGBTQ community.
As reported in the Daily Wire, a report attributed to The San Francisco Chronicle says that Democrat State Sen. Scott Wiener (seriously) is trying to gather support in the waning weeks of the legislative session for SB145, which he introduced last year and which is held up in a key committee.
The legislation would provide “judges discretion over sex-offender registration in all cases involving voluntary intercourse between teenagers age 14 to 17, who cannot legally consent, and adults who are less than 10 years older.” In other words, this legislation would allow a 24-year-old to have “consensual” sex with a 14-year-old of the same sex and not be placed on a sex offender registry. Disgusting.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle:
“If a man has vaginal intercourse with an underage teenage girl, the judge can decide whether he should be placed on the sex offender registry based on the facts of the case. But if anal or oral sex, or vaginal penetration with anything other than a penis is involved, the adult must register as a sex offender—a relic of a penal code that criminalized those acts until 1975, even between consenting adults.”
Wiener said, “California’s sex offender registry continues to draw that distinction—an antiquated, outdated, leftover distinction—that somehow oral sex is worse than vaginal sex.”
He continued that such a precedent is “horrific homophobia” that is “irrational and it ruins people’s lives.”
Wouldn’t it make more sense for California legislators to be going in the opposite direction? Making such conduct between members of the opposite sex fall under the same guidelines? Not necessarily under the auspices of fairness but because adults should not be having consensual sex with children under the age of 17. Period.
“It makes no sense. It disproportionately impacts LGBTQ people because LGBTQ people are far less likely to be engaging in penile, vaginal intercourse,” Wiener told The San Francisco Examiner.
Wiener is nothing if not a little bit obsessed with sexually oriented legislation. In 2017, he co-sponsored a bill which made knowingly exposing a partner to HIV no longer a felony.
Wiener’s support for this bill has, according to him, exposed him to death threats.
“I’ve been the subject of death threats and personal attacks, threatening to decapitate me and send my head to my mother,” Wiener told an online news conference.
“This kind of slander, not just against me but against my community, is outrageous and we have to speak out against it.”
Always playing the victim.
Wiener singled out so-called “QAnon conspiracy theorists,” whom he says believe he is making a subversive plan to legalize pedophilia. Trust us, that will be next. There are already those trying to claim that pedophilia is a “psychological disorder” and therefore an illness, not a crime. It’s coming.
Wiener also told the Chronicle that he has been the target of online harassment, and hit with “toxic, poisonous hate and homophobia and anti-Semitism,” he claims from right-wing conspiracy theorists and others.
Chad Felix Greene, a journalist who also happens to be gay wrote in The Federalist, “As has become far too common, opposing perceived right-wing attacks is more important than critically addressing dangerous legislation.”
Continuing, Green said:
“Providing reasonable legal accommodation to this very specific and narrow experience should not be an open invitation for adults to exploit young teenagers by engaging in sex with them.
Unfortunately, Wiener and other California lawmakers, who have had no formal pushback on this legislation so far, are more interested in pursuing grand social ideals rather than writing simple, rational law.
Left-wing media is all too happy to use labels of ‘hate’ and ‘conspiracy theories’ to dismiss legitimate concerns.”
Wiener’s proposal is backed by Equality California, a LGBTQ rights organization, as well as groups representing district attorneys and oddly enough, police chiefs.
Law enforcement agencies say that California’s sex offender registry has simply become too large to fulfill its’ mission, which is to track potential predators. Officials have previously advocated to have people convicted of less-serious crimes removed from the list.
One such official is Bradley McCartt, a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County who prosecutes sexual assault cases involving children. He claims the unequal treatment of same-sex couples is a civil rights issue.
He says that “there’s a lot of misinformation about what the sex offender registry does, what its purpose is. That is why there is such strong, unbelievable support among law enforcement about this bill.”
While the bill was passed in the state Senate last year, it was held up in a key committee in the Assembly by the chair, Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) who was seeking amendments to narrow its scope. Wiener says he is pushing to get the bill out of committee, which must be done by the end of next week.
Wiener says that he is trying to bring attention to the so-called “marginalization” of LGBTQ youth. So, apparently 24-year-olds are now considered “youth.”
“We need to be lifting these young people up,” Wiener claims, “and not criminalizing them and attacking them.”
Cool. Not.
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