Georgia Christians support sending little girls to jail?

Despite Republicans running all Georgia government, the Christian right in Georgia has lobbied heavily in opposition to a couple of Republican-sponsored bills in the legislature.  They held a press conference together today.  The groups who made it to the press conference were the Georgia Christian Alliance, the Georgia Christian Coalition, Georgian Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, and the Georgia Baptist Convention.  Georgia Eagle Forum president and former state senator Nancy Schaefer is leading efforts against these bills.  Republican gubernatorial candidate John Oxendine was at the press conference, but did not speak there.  Most of this information comes from this AJC article/blog entry.

The weighty issue they are screaming about, against the Republicans who presented these bills?  The bills would allow young girls (under 16) to be placed into diversionary programs instead of arresting them and putting them into the criminal system with prostitution charges.  The argument in favor of these laws is that legally, children cannot consent to sexual intercourse, and so, legally, cannot be considered guilty of prostitution.  The argument against these bills, best as I can determine, is that the pseudoChristian protestors are just implementing the words of Jesus Christ, when He was asked about the 12-year-old prostitute: “Let that ho fry!”

I’m glad to see that the generally reliably wingnut bloggers and commentators at Peach Pundit (founded by wingnut extraordinaire Erick Erickson, who also leads wingnuttery at RedState) quickly decided that this was insanity.

The first wave of responders at the AJC blog above pushed a general line of sanity against this, but if you read down the responses you’ll find a huge batch of True Christian Victims.  There are one or two at Peach Pundit, too, who try to justify the True Christian opponents of this bill.  Their arguments remind me of the anti-Equal Rights Amendment arguments I heard as a child in Mississippi, such as “Rape will no longer be a crime if ERA is passed!”  Yes, I seriously heard that argument, enough to remember it 35 years later.

This story was just reported in the 10pm local news on the local Fox affiliate, and the segment was extremely sympathetic to the laws.  It did not mention the right-wing Christian opposition.  If you get a chance, get your voice out there in favor of these bills.  We may actually get to help some of these girls, like some of the 12-year-olds kidnapped abroad and brought here for sexual slavery.  Maybe somebody can explain why the Christian Coalition wants to make sure that these girls go to jail rather than get public assistance to rescue them from this life, whether “chosen” or forced.