It’s no secret that America has some of the most bizarre sex laws in the world. In some states, there are laws which proclaim someone who has gone streaking as a sex offender. And sex laws are the punishment that keep on giving: even after you serve your jail sentence or pay your fine, you are still a second-class citizen. Sex offenders in every state are kept on a publicly-accessible registry and subject to segregation.
Right now, I want to discuss a law passed by Illinois governor Pat Quinn which makes it illegal for convicted sex offenders to use social networks. The passing of the law is not Mr. Quinn’s fault, but it’s still one of the most broken things I’ve ever read. In the bill, social networks are defined as websites “containing profile web pages of the mebers of the website.” In the official bill, there are terms attached to what the profile has to contain, but suffice to say that it essentially encompasses every website on the internet. Yes, this means that if you are a convicted sex offender in Illinois, on January 1st, when the law comes into effect, you will not legally be able to use the internet.
Some of you might be saying “but Michael, lots of websites don’t have profile pages.” Well, the vast majority of them do. Blogs and news sites almost always allow users to create profiles. All the streaming sites (Hulu, Pandora, Netflix, etc) have user-created profiles. The big content aggregators like Digg and Slashdot have profile pages. But here’s the real kicker: Google has profiles. Let me repeat that: in Illinois, if you are a sex offender, you will be unable to legally use Google.
What makes this so appalling is that what it means to be a sex offender in the United States is absolutely absurd. In the majority of states, if someone has consensual sex with another person who is just remotely underage, that person for life will be considered a sex offender. That’s one of the more reasonable cases (even though it’s still pretty ridiculous). In some states, streaking and public urination are considered sex crimes.
As I said before, the law’s passing is no fault of Governor Quinn’s. The blame can be placed on the shoulders of one Bill Brady, a state senator from Illinois. See, Quinn is up for re-election next year, and Brady is going to be running against him. Anyone versed in American political campaigns is no secret to the shitstorms candidates create for each other. When it comes to sex laws, the attack ads more or less write themselves. Suppose Quinn had opposed the law. Brady would then have been able to run ads accusing Quinn of preventing a law designed to protect children from rapists. For Pat Quinn, to have opposed this bill in any way would have been political suicide.
Again, let me drive home just home just how untrue claims that sex offenders are all child rapists really are. In Georgia, an analysis of people on the sex offender registry found that 65% of registered offenders were relatively harmelss, while only 5% were a clear threat (that link is to an article in The Economist, which I encourage you to read). For example, a woman named Megan Kanka who resides in Georgia is now a registered sex offender for life because she performed oral sex on a minor. She was seventeen, and the other party was almost sixteen. She was convicted for sodomy, and even though there are no more laws against sodomy in any state, Ms. Kanka is still subject to the same restrictions that any other convicted sex offender faces (such as not being allowed to live or work near any places that children congregate). If she lived in Illinois, Ms. Kanka would also be banned from the internet.
I sincerely hope that the law Governor Quinn passed, which I’m going to call the “No Internet For Sex Offenders Law,” gets repealed. Well, I’m also hoping for a total overhaul of America’s treatment of its so-called sex offenders, but I see the former as far more immediately possible than the latter. I’m sure there are people like Ms. Kanka in Illinois who should in no way be on a sex offender registry. But come January, these people will not legally be allowed to use the Google search bar in their browsers.
