On Friday, Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law, passed by the Democrat-controlled state senate and Democrat-controlled state assembly, that reduces penalties for certain adults who engage in sex acts with children as young as 14 years of age. The law makes it more likely that parents won’t know when a sex offender has access to their children.
The bill removes the automatic requirement for a person to register as a sex offender when convicted of having sex with a minor so long as the child is at least 14 years of age and the adult is not older than the child by more than 10 years when the crime took place.
With the automatic requirement to register as a sex offender removed, only a judge can impose the requirement as part of the sentencing. Judges routinely spark outrage for incredibly lenient sentences involving sex crimes against children.
The bill is being touted as pro-LGBT legislation because it ends what supporters of the legislation are calling long-standing discrimination against the LGBT community.
Rather than impose the automatic requirement on adults, the lawmaker who introduced the bill — State Sen. Scott Wiener, of San Francisco — chose to reduce the penalty on sex offenders instead.
The automatic requirement was a safety measure to protect children by mandating sex offenders register on the list, regardless of whatever judge may be overseeing the case.