Hans Bader has some clarification on one issue on which there’s been widespread confusion, on which the California law does not go to the extreme some would have liked [San Francisco Chronicle letter to the editor; earlier]:
“New law redefines consent at college” (Sept. 29) claimed that California’s new “affirmative consent” law regulating college sex “says that a person cannot give consent if they are intoxicated.” But it does not say this. What it actually says is that “consent” is absent when “the complainant was incapacitated” due to alcohol.
Most intoxicated people are not legally deemed “incapacitated” and can consent, as law professor Anne Coughlin and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education have noted.
Many happily married people have sex after drinking. While some liberal Democrats who sponsored SB967 wanted to ban sex between intoxicated people, the final version of the bill does not do so.
Admittedly, the new law is disturbingly vague in other ways. Its co-sponsor, Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), said, “Your guess is as good as mine,” when asked how an innocent person could prove “affirmative” consent.
Hans Bader, Washington, D.C.
8 Comments
“Your guess is as good as mine”? From the bills’ sponsor?! This is surreal…
@Juliette Whiskey,
What you are missing is that the bill’s sponsor doesn’t actually want anyone to be able to prove consent. There is a hard core contingent in the feminist movement that considers all heterosexual sex to be rape (even in the context of marriage).
The whole point of this law is to make it a crime for any guy to get laid ever.
“Your guess is as good as mine”? From the bills’ sponsor?! This is surreal…
Not really, Juliette. This is from the same mindset that gave us “we have to pass it to know what’s in it”.
Amazingly sad. So does some poor sap have to get charged under this before a court tosses it?
Amazingly sad. So does some poor sap have to get charged under this before a court tosses it?
IANAL, Ben, but sadly I think so. Like with any other law, you have to show a damage before a court can review.
Ah Ben, it is much more insidious than that. This has nothing to do with police and court and due process. This law spits on due process.
It is college as judge jury enforcer able to brand, label, expel and ruin any accused on the mere preponderance of evidence.
>Not really, Juliette. This is from the same mindset that gave us “we >have to pass it to know what’s in it”.
Well with one difference I suppose. The objective with Obamacare was to pass something, anything, and let the details be worked out later, on the theory that such a program once in place would be near impossible to repeal. In this case though, unless Ms. Lowenthal is a complete lackwit who put no thought whatever into the bill, one has to assume the underlying motivation is nefarious.
Ok, got it. I see where you’re coming from.