Gaby Rodriguez, Toppenish High School Student, Fakes Pregnancy for Senior Project

• 18 is an adult, 16 is not an adult. Parents of kids in an adult/minor relationship should really discourage it because of the legal ramifications. The kids don't see the two yr age gap as being a big deal, especially if both are still in high school, since they share the same peer group. Often a prosecutor will encourage or convince reluctant parents to file charges. Being listed as a sex offender for the situation you describe is a terrible result of people pushing for zero tolerance laws and the obsession with sex in general. A sex registry yet no registry for violent offenders upon release makes no sense.

• It was my son's best friend. He was 18; his sweetheart was 16; she became pregnant, and they immediately married. In the hospital, a "social worker," putting dates together and realizing conception occurred before marriage, called CPA who called the police who involved the DA who indicted him for sexual battery of a child. Terrified of the threatened prison time, he took a plea: ten years' probation and lifetime sex offender registry. (Did I mention that this is in Texas?) They have two lovely children, are terrific parents and citizens, but where they live and for how long, if or if not he gets and keeps a job, whether they will have enough money to pay "counseling" and probation and lie detector fees in addition to feeding their children, whether he can or cannot attend his child's nursery school play, whether on any given day some other child at school will tell her that her father is a pervert because the other child has heard her parents say it--every one of these things is dictated by the sex offender registry. I have no trouble with the age of consent; I believe 16 is more appropriate than 17 or 18. I have no trouble with appropriate consequences, but I do not believe sex offender registration should be part of those consequences. I believe making criminals of young lovers and ruining their futures is pointless and destructive to our nation. And, unless you have now acquired ownership of this site and this blog, I do not look to you for permission to write.

• I find you hypocritical. Obviously, either your son or someone you know was charged as a sex offender. At some point there needs to be an age of consent. Where do you intend to draw the line? 14, 12, 9????? Stop trying to use this as a soapbox for your issue.

• I thought she took on this project to prove a point about how young mothers are made to feel. If these young men you speak of have in fact had consensual sex with their underage girlfriends, at least some of those girls probably became pregnant and had to deal with the same issues this girl was trying to understand and bring to light to her community. Wouldn't you think these young men support and love their girlfriends, and would support a peer who is trying to help her community to face and better deal with their exact situation? If there should be a better way to deal with young couples bordering the legal consensual age to have sex, we need to begin by opening up about the subject as a community and getting over our own, sometimes terrible, attitudes on it. I think this girl's project is a part of that.

• AN assignment was required for graduation. It didn't HAVE to be that... that's just what she chose to do. In what I feel was an original move that probably got her a great grade for sheer balls.

• It makes one wonder if her walking around with her fake pregnant belly might have actually prevented one or more teen pregnancies. I know that it is impossible to prove such a thing but you know it made some of the other teenagers stop and think before they took that chance. The only thing that concerned me was that it was an "assignment required for graduation".

• There are young men and teenaged boys who have been forced to register as sex offenders after teen girlfriends became pregnant or gave birth and a sexual relationship involving a minor became apparent. I realize the young lady, in Washington, was of the age of consent because that age is 16, but in many states it is 17 and 18. I do not find this "social experiment" commendable; I find it hypocritical and disturbing. I rather doubt that any of the parents of teen boys who are registered sex offenders, many for life, depending on the state, because they had consensual sex with their underage girlfriends--16 and 17 in many states--find it commendable either.

• When <i>Gentlemen's Agreement</i> came out, I'll bet there were millions of outraged, sensitive souls decrying prejudice for hundreds of angry minutes. Hold on -- I'll go look it up and make sure.

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