Heterosexual man makes mockery of marriage, may get 50 years in jail

[Ian David]

Man faces 50 years for sex with bride, 14 - Expectant couple crossed state line to marry
by AP


A 22-year-old man faces up to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty Tuesday to sexual assault charges filed after he impregnated and then married a 14-year-old girl.

Matthew Koso legally married the girl in Kansas after she became pregnant. The girl, 14-year-old Crystal Koso, gave birth August 24 to a girl, Samara.

Sentencing was set for February 7.

<snip>

Bruning said that Koso is a friend of the girl's half brother and began a relationship with her when she was 12.

<snip>

After the girl became pregnant, her mother gave permission for Koso to take her daughter across the state line to Hiawatha, Kansas. There is no minimum age for marriage in Kansas, but state law requires anyone under 18 wanting to marry to have permission of both parents or a guardian. If there's no parent or guardian, permission from a judge is required.

More:
http://news.neilrogers.com/news/articles/2005121425.html

So, what do we do to protect the sanctity of marriage from this attack by straight people?

[Loonman]

1. The war on marriage

In a red state. Imagine that....

[uppityperson]

2. Next thing you know, they'll want to be marrying, um, each other?

I am so embarraessed by those dang hetereos. They're going to be attacking "happy fourth of july" next! :rofl:

[Squatch]

3. They're going to throw him in jail...

and that little baby will turn out to be the victim, here.

[Skidmore]

4. Oh, for pity sake. I hope you are all trying to be sarcastic.

He deserves to go to jail, by any standard. Is there a law defining pedophilia in Kansas? Or is it part of intelligent design there too?

[patcox2]

5. There is a definition of pedophilia

Its a compulsive sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children.

Pre-pubescent children cannot get pregnant.

So culturally blinded.

[helderheid]

28. Hello? He started the relationship with her when she was 12!!!

[Divameow77]

6. If he deserves to go to jail

it sure isn't for 50 years.

[Imagine My Surprise]

18. Right. And will Ken Lay ever darken a "cell" door? I doubt it

[Liberal Veteran]

8. Maybe...maybe not.

We don't know the specifics of this case. I have two aunts that got married to men in their early 20's when they were 14 years old. One of them was raising her first child by her 16th birthday, the other never had children. Neither relationship ended in divorce. One of my aunts died married to her first husband about 10 years ago and the other is still happily married.

I suppose one could say that times have changed, but I'm not sure I want to suggest my uncles were pedophiles (or my father for that matter, since he married my mother when she was 15 and he was 22). Without knowing more about the specifics, I'm not prepared to condemn anyone or toss the "pedophilia" charge around. Statutory rape perhaps, but pedophiles generally don't marry their victims.

[Ian David]

9. In some cultures, rape victims may be forced to marry their attackers

There was just a big thing in Pakistan about it a couple weeks ago, for example.

Granted, this guy didn't jump her in a back alley somewhere. It sounds like they've been having sex since she was 12. In my mind, that's still abuse, even if the 12 year old was "willing."

It's possible that this guy was abusing this girl, and then her "pro-family" parents told her she had to marry the guy once she got pregnant. It seems likely, given that they gave her permission to marry him.

[Liberal Veteran]

13. Again, lots of things are possible, but we can't jump to any conclusions..

...based on this article.

And really, the Pakistan thing was a little over the top even for a red herring. We aren't talking about Pakistan, we are talking about the United States and there is no evidence that our culture forces women to marry their rapist.

I certainly understand that people find the story shocking and scandalous, but I don't think it's safe to make any assumptions about the motives of anyone involved.

[Ian David]

16. Point well taken. Thanks. n/t

[xchrom]

7. oh my.

breeders.:popcorn:

[Ian David]

10. Oh, look! Matthew Koso already has his own Wikipedia entry!

Matthew Koso
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit

Matthew Koso (born 1983) is a Falls City, Nebraska native whose case sparked controversy in both Nebraska and Kansas. In July, 2005, Koso was charged in Nebraska for statutory rape after his 13-year-old girlfriend became pregnant and they married in Kansas, where minors under 18 are allowed to wed with parental consent. The pending trial is drawing headlines nationally and internationally.



Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius says that as a result of this controversy, she will request for the minimum age to be raised to 16<1> rather then 12. Meanwhile in Nebraska, Attorney General Jon Bruning has charged Koso with one count of first-degree sexual assault which is punishable by up to 50 years in prison. Bruning says he will not allow his state to have an adult male involved in a sexual relationship with a young adolescent girl. In taking this position, he overruled Richardson County DA Jeffrey Goltz, who had opted not to press charges in the case.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Koso

[xchrom]

14. war!

[Ian David]

11. Here's some stuff from a right-wing Anti-ACLU blog

September 15, 2005
Matthew Koso Redux

I dunno, perhaps I have a bit of OCD, but I can't help but get thoroughly ticked off when I read stuff about Matthew Koso. I posted on his, er, situation a number of times.

<snip>

Matthew first met Crystal through her half-brother when she was 8, and they began dating in the fall of 2003 when he was 20 and she was 12.

Oh my God...think about this for a moment. The difference between 12 and 20 sounds bad enough, but 16 and 8? He would have been thrown in some juvenile detention had they suspected he did anything to her then.

Crystal's mother, Cecilia Guyer, filed a restraining order against Matthew Koso on Sept. 17, 2004.

"He needs to hang around girls and boys his own age group," Guyer wrote in the complaint. "He needs to seek counseling. He has a history of the same, similar with other young girls, and he needs to be stopped here and now."

They knew the pregnancy was wrong, because they hid it. Then Crystal's mother found out when she saw the girl's stretchmarks. Remember, he impregnated her when she was 13 years old and he was 21. That's statutory rape in Nebraska, my friends.

"At that time, our options were limited," Matthew's mother, Peggy Koso, said today on "Good Morning America." "It was either abortion, which was well past due; adoption, which was out of the question; and then it was to marry her, which we thought was the right thing to do."

More:
http://merrimusings.typepad.com/merri_musings/2005/09/matthew_koso_re.html

[xchrom]

15. see? even adoption is evil!

[havocmom]

12. Heterosexual men (and women) make a mockery of marriage

WAY too often and in oh-so-many ways! We're gonna need more prisons!

Now, busting the guy for sex with a minor makes some sense.

[Imagine My Surprise]

17. Clearly this is part of a vast heterosexual agenda!

:nopity:

[Imagine My Surprise]

19. My mother married my father when she was 15...

I am told my father thought she was in her 20's. My father was about 23. She was also trying to escape a step-father who was trying to molest her. Little did my mother know that my father was a big-time abusive alcoholic. She left him when I was 7 months old and because of her age and financial status, he got custody of me. I guess my point here is that though my father was many things -- hateful, evil, and abusive -- I would not call him a pedophile, even if he had KNOWN my mother's age when they married. By the way, I am a 50 year old male, so this happened in 1954. And in case you're wondering, it happened in Louisville, Kentucky.

[holdensphonies]

20. War on Marriage... agree

We must stop this assualt on our young married straight kids!

[happyslug]

21. The common law age of Consent was 12.

And that seems to be an universal age world wide i.e. it is generally pedophiles if you have sex who is younger than 12, but NOT if the person is age 12 or older. Thus in the Catholic Church confirmation is about age 12 (Through the Church has been trying to push that age up over the last 20-30 years, to many Catholics STOP going to CCD classes once they were confirmed).

Now some cultures have different ages. For example Mohammad married one wife when she was six and had sex with her when she was 10 (And he was in his 50s, there is a good possibility that the sex at age 10 was either just claimed by both parties or just a one time act to consummate the marriage for unlike his other wives she NEVER had any of his children).

Now no one liked the age of 12 as the age of Consent, it looked to young thus the States have all passed different age of Consent (i.e. by Statute thus the crime of "Statutory Rape" for its rape defined under the Statute). The problem is that people between the age of 12 and 21 do have sex. Given that people that young has CONSENSUAL SEX how to you handle such sexual activities? Furthermore you have the Federal Constitution requirement that ALL STATES give full faith and Credit to the acts of all other states. This is important for under Common Law Marriage (Still legal is several states) a 12 year old can legally entered into such a marriage WITHOUT PERMISSION OF HER OR HIS PARENTS (This was a ruling made by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court about 5 years ago, since that time the State LEgislature ha set a minimum requirement of age 18 for Common law marriages and than a few years later abolished Common Law Marriages). Since every other state would have to recognize that marriage as a legal Marriage and one part of marriage is sex, no matter what age a states gives IT STILL HAS TO GIVE RECOGNITION TO SUCH A MARRIAGE AND THE RIGHT TO HAVE SEX WITHIN THE MARRIAGE.

If we look at Foreign Countries, many still permit marriage prior to age 12 (and some countries permit marriage between one than two people at a time). Now the States do NOT have to recognize such marriages but it has been common practice to do so (Through how the states will treat Homosexual marriages of Europe and Canada is still up in the air, with many states saying NO). Again if the state recognize the marriage sex is part of that marriage even if one married partner is below that state's age of consent for sex.

My point here is age 12 seems to be the nearest thing to a Universal age of Consent world wide and we may have to state to accept that fact.

[Imagine My Surprise]

23. Even among Protestants...

the age of 12 is considered around the time say for instance, a Baptist can be baptized. It's called the age of accountability, et al.

[Ian David]

24. In countries where many people die by age 30, that might make sense...

or in agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies as well.

But in today's complex modern world, in order to survive, men and women need a great deal of intensive education if they're to stand any sort of chance.

Getting married, dropping out of school, and having babies at age 12 is a nearly certain recipe for disaster.

I'd be willing to tentatively concede-- with reservations-- to an age of consent at age 14 (so long as the older party is also under 18 or less than 3 years older). But 12 years old is far too young.

[happyslug]

27. The average life expectancy of a five year old has increase about 5 years

Thus when you hear of life expectancy of age 35 for cavemen, they mean AVERAGE life expectancy. Thus if you have two people, one dies at age 69 and the other at at 1 what is the Average age? 35. Prior to 1900 you had very high levels of infant mortality which causes life expectancy at birth to be very low but inc-eases dramatically once you turn about age 5. Even the Bible recognizes this Dilemma saying that a person will live "Three score and ten" (i.e 70 years) NOT 30 or 35.

Thus by the time a person reached age 12, he or she had a life expectancy of another 60 years, which is just a little less than what you can expect today. My point is that what we expect of a 12 year old is not that much different than from what society expected from a 12 year old in the days of the Cavemen.

One of the biggest changes since 1900 is when people first marry. From 1900 to 1960 that age DROPPED for both sexes, then started to increase from 1970 onward (Finally passing the 1900 age levels sometime in the mid 1990s). While various explanation have been proposed for why men and women are marrying later than their parents, no one is asking why people's grandparents and great grand parents married at ages exceeded their parents (and equaling or exceeding their own age of marriage). Complexity of society can not explain the DROP in marriage and the subsequent Increase is the age of Marriage. The best explanation is people prior to 1940 did not finish high school so had to meet and date independent of School, while after 1940 most people went to High School and started to date at that time. In 1970 most people started to go to Collage which replaced High School where people meet, dated and then wed.

The same for the other complexity of today's society, the real issue is NOT when someone starts to date but where. Prior 1940 it was in social settings not schools, after 1940 it was High School then Collage. That is the only big change.

As to older societies, their tried to restrict interaction of their teenagers except in structured situations much like School. The purposes of these structures was an attempt to minimize sex that would lead to unwanted children. Like today's restrictions sometime the structures worked, other times they do not. Thus all societies has to address the problem of what to do with 12 year olds having sex.

One way is to punish the sexual act itself, but what if a child is born to the couple? Hanging the parents will NOT give the child financial support. On the other hand 12-21 years old have always been in the training pool, be it Schools as today, or apprenticeships as in the pre-1800s (or just learning to deal with other as a work party as in farming or other labor common prior to 1900).

The other extreme is to wed people at age 12 so as they become aware of their Sexuality they know who they are to have sex with. The Ancient Romans and Greeks did this extensively. The biggest problem was that such early marriage does cause problems, the first is that while women can have children at age 12, women are not fully form to have children till about age 21. As to men, while they can have sex at age 12, most of their sperm are "immature" at that age and difficult for them to get their wive pregnant. Men do not fully produce mature sperm till about age 18 (12 year old men can impregnate women but it is quicker for an 18 year to do so).

Thus given the limitation of men and women before their turn about 21 waiting to have children has ALWAYS MADE SENSE. The problem is NOT when people should have sex, but in those cases when people have sex before their turn 18, how to treat such acts.

While I disagree with any age for sex before age 18, I have to remember it does happen and how to address both the sex act and any children produce by that sex act (This assumes consensual sex, rape is a completely different set of facts).

Thus marrying at age 12 does NOT solve the problem, nor does severe punishment. Thus what is the Answer? People have been arguing this for the last 200 years, but every time I examine the situation I keep on going back to age 12. I believe Society should have structures to make an effort to restrict sex (Chaperon etc) but also accept it does occur and if it does resolve the problems caused by the early sex NOT make it worse by punishing the underage sexual partners.

[porphyrian]

22. Isn't Samara the name of the evil dead girl in The Ring? - n/t

[TimeChaser]

26. In the English version

In the Japanese original she's Sadako

[Deja Q]

25. Britt-brat divorced after 55 hours. Why isn't she locked up, instad of

being knocked up with a kid she seemed to whine about, even while she was pregnant - a condition she badmouthed time and time again.

[retread]

29. So a 6 year old could be married in Kansas? Is this what they

mean by intelligent design?

[happyslug]

30. I suspect Kansas just uses the Common Law Rule

In the US (and most other Common Law Countries) the Common law prevails unless replaced by Statute. In most states the age to consent to Marriage is part of the Marriage law, but if no such age is mentioned then the common law rule applies i.e. age 12.

Now it is possible that Kansas has a different rule than age 12, but it would be a Judge made modification of the Common Law NOT by Statute. I would try to look it up, but I suspect the above for the "Victim" here was over age 12.

[Yollam]

31. Regardless of what the law says, 14 is TOO YOUNG to marry.

This Sluggo should wait until this girl is an adult old enough to make up her mind.

How sad that her parents let this little girl have a baby. What is with these people?

[Ian David]

32. Culture of Life! n/t