By Scott Tibbs, September 24, 2012
The following is an open letter to the legislators that represent Monroe County in the Indiana House and Senate.
What is sad here is that after the Indiana Daily Student published an irresponsible editorial basically advertising the smartphone app (which I will not name here) the app becomes the catalyst for a violent crime. What the app does is make it possible for people to "hook up" for anonymous sex.
"Hooking up" is not new by any means, but the extent to which sexual intimacy has been cheapened in our culture to the point that people will give their bodies away without a second thought is a great tragedy that has destroyed many souls. This is not God's plan for sexuality as our Lord Jesus Christ explained in Mark 10:1-9.
Dear Legislators,
Both the Indiana Daily Student and the Herald-Times reported this week that a man was raped by another man after meeting through a social networking smartphone application. But the IDS article contained a surprising and disturbing quote: "Indiana Code does not constitute forced man-on-man penetration as rape." A quick look at IC 35-42-4-1 confirms this.
While the rapist would be prosecuted under the Criminal Deviate Conduct portion of the code, I believe this is an unfortunate oversight in the code that should be corrected as soon as possible. Men who are victims of rape should not be told by the Indiana Code that what was done to them is not rape. Everyone instinctively knows that sexual penetration against someone's will is rape, regardless of whether it is done to someone of the same sex or opposite sex.
I find it amazing that this is still the case in 2012, but this can be fixed easily and with almost no effort or time. I see no reason why we should not have complete bipartisan agreement on changing the law to make it clear that all rape is indeed rape. In fact, this is such an obvious common-sense change that it should pass unanimously in both houses.
Thanks for your time.
