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Title: These Teens Kept Their Sexting Private, But Cops Found Out. Now They Face Sex Offender Registry, Jail.
Source:
Reason
URL Source: http://reason.com/blog/2015/09/01/t ... s-kept-their-sexting-private-b
Published: Sep 1, 2015
Author: Robby Soave
Post Date: 2015-09-02 10:24:48 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 2849
Comments: 83
Fayetteville, North Carolina, cops have charged 17-year-old Cormega Copening with sexual exploitation of a minor—his girlfriend, who is the same age—because the couple sent each other nude photos of themselves during their relationship. There’s no evidence the photos were ever sent to anyone else, and police only became aware of them because they searched Copening’s phone for unrelated reasons that haven't been specified. Even so, the teen—formerly the starting quarterback at his high school—faces decades on the Sex Offender Registry and up to ten years behind bars if convicted. He’s also been benched from the team while Jack Britt High School investigates the matter. Copening’s girlfriend—who remains unnamed in the news articles—is also facing charges, ABC11 reported. These teen-sexting witch hunts are almost always outrageous; they conflate child pornography with something far less sinister. It’s perfectly normal—and wildly common—for kids to express an interest in sex. Should authority figures discourage underage sexting? Sure. Should they ruin kids’ lives for doing it anyway? Absolutely not. But Copening’s situation is more outrageous than most. As far as I can tell, the pictures weren’t shared with anyone else—this isn’t a case where a boy texted a girl’s nude photos to all of his friends and caused her some considerable public humiliation. The photos were private, and remained that way, until the cops got hold of them. If there’s public humiliation here, police intervention is the cause. Consider as well that Copening reciprocated with photos of his own. Does not a mutual, voluntary exchange of photos undercut the notion that “sexual exploitation” is a factor here? It’s more than a little ridiculous to accuse these two of exploiting each other—although this is precisely what the authorities are doing, I presume (the specific charges against the girlfriend were not reported). Lastly, it bears repeating that these teens were 17. If they had waited until they were 18 to send the photos, no crime would have occurred. Eighteen-year-olds are recognized as fully-autonomous sexual adults. Kylie Jenner, who just turned 18, has been inundated with requests to make a sex tape (indeed, filmmakers began making these requests even before she turned 18). The law, by its very nature, permits no nuance: you are 18, or you’re not. But it’s ridiculous to think that teens are magically transformed into adults on their 18th birthday. Many of them—perhaps Copening and his girlfriend—might be ready for mature relationships that involve sex (or, at least, sexy pictures) prior to the government’s randomly-selected date. There’s one more disturbing angle to this story. If Copening is too young to send pictures of his own body, is he not also too young to be made a social pariah? Don’t news agencies often withhold publication of the names of crime victims when they are underage? Copening is a crime victim, according to the police, but multiple local news agencies reported his name and the full situation. They reported on his suspension from the high school football team. They showed his headshot. They pointed out the likelihood that he will have to register as a sex offender. The criminal charges and possible jail time are the worst consequences of the police investigation, but the smearing of Copening’s name and ruining of his high school experience are also unfortunate outcomes—each of them much worse than the harm from a nude photo swap that would have never come to light if the cops had minded their own business. 
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 63.
#2. To: Deckard (#0)
The level of potential punishment is extremely disproportionate.
Perhaps. But back in the day the father of the son and the father of the daughter could go to war over such happenings. Hatfields and McCoys etc. But a more reasoned approach is for the father of the daughter to work the matter with the father of the son. However, given the family unit today you cannot be assured either has a father that is present or cares. The moral of the story is to not expose your body to someone who is not your husband/wife.
There are more morals to the story than that. The law itself is excessively harsh, and THEREFORE ungodly. God never prescribed imprisonment, crushing, fines, or anything else, for mere nakedness. It was shameful, that is all. PRISON? Years on a registry that prevents work and habitation? It is pagan in its barbarism. Men are angry that they cannot control the sexual of youth, so they excessively crush one or two as an example to the others. Let us be very clear: these teenagers did something dumb and socially inappropriate, and that is all. The law should not be involved with this. And if it is, the law should be lenient and instructive to the teenagers, not barbaric and life ending. Any man who stands and bellows that these children should be crushed "to make an example" is standing there with a stone, and the accused are not even adulterers. Remember what Jesus warned: let he among you who is without sin (not without this SPECIFIC sin - Jesus did not narrow it like that, but we can: let he among you who is without SEXUAL sin) cast the first stone. And remember well what else Jesus warned: he who forgives will be forgiven, but he who will not forgive shall not be forgiven by the Father either. Think on that well. Every man who crushes these teenagers for something that is an imprudence, nothing more, has set the standard by which God will judge him for his sexual sins. What man casting that stone to crush has MERELY the sin of exposure to a lover, hmmm? The men who want to hound these teens into a hell on earth are casting their own souls into hell. God will not forgive them their sexual sins, and he will crush them at judgment BECAUSE they set the standards. In other words: if you yourself do not want to be thrown into the soul prison of hell for your own sexual sins, back off on these teenagers and forgive them. Have mercy on them, and God will have mercy on you. Refuse them mercy, and you have damned your own soul. Jesus said that - and he said it three times. He meant it. Take is literally, or burn in hell.
Yeah. Just like drunk driving. Hey, if no one was injured, no property damaged ... WTF? Right? Why ruin some guy's life because he did something dumb and socially inappropriate?
Why ruin some guy's life because he did something dumb and socially inappropriate? Yes. Like that, but much moreso, because drunk driving can kill people. Dumb pictures cannot. Sending nude pictures of each other is a far more trivial thing than driving a ton of metal while inebriated. But we punish the nudie pictures more harshly than drunk driving, even. In any case, my approach to law is based upon what God said to do and not to do, and on the way that he taught judgment and punishment. I am making the point, to Christians, that if they are harsh and unforgiving, they are setting themselves that very standard of judgment when they are judged by God for everything they have ever done. There is no statute of limitations with God, and nothing is hidden. Everybody is a sinner. Everybody has done dumb, and evil and illegal things. If a man is a self-righteous "CRUCIFY THEM!" prig, because his own sins are hidden, if he's a Christian he needs to understand that, because he has taken that approach, that he has himself chosen the standard of judgment God will apply to him. The harsh righteous prig who says "CRUCIFY THEM, THEY BROKE THE LAW!" has broken the law of God many time, and God will crucify him for having done so - God will apply to each man the standard of judgment that that man has applied to his fellow men. Jesus promised that three times, and he did so as a matter of warning - he said that those who do not forgive other men will not be forgiven for their sins by God. My primary concern is not for the "criminal" or the "victim" in this case. It's with the Christians ready to cast stones. I would prefer that men not cast themselves into Hell by being judgmental jackasses, but that's what they do, and they ought to know that, because Jesus made it so clear, so many times. Nudie pictures are degrading, and the individuals can be shamed, and taught not to do that. But prison and long periods of severe punitive restriction afterwards? It is excessive. And eagerly urging on such a system of excessive judgment earns Hell for the man who delights in harsh punishment of others, because it means that God will likewise brutally punish him for every minor sin he ever committed. The harsh man can abandon all hope of heaven, because he has set a standard of judgment of his own crimes, by God, which makes it impossible for him to pass it. And that's stupidity incarnate. The pagan doesn't know this. But the Christian who can read OUGHT to know this. If he doesn't, he's ignorant of the truths of his own God. If he HAS read it, and doesn't give a damn what God says, and chooses to be a judgmental jackass anyway, then he is one of those Christians who cries "Lord, Lord", but who has apportioned for himself a place in the fire. You're worried about the effects of the nudie pictures on the people photographed. I'm worried about the eternal damnation of the souls of the judgmental jackasses who want to crucify children for what are truly petty mistakes. Send a boy to jail for 10 years for exchanging nude pictures, and you have damned yourself to hell. Understand that.
But we punish the nudie pictures more harshly than drunk driving, even. The harsh laws stem from recent (within the past few years) events where young people/kids committed suicide because some idiot posted their photos on the internet. That is why some localities have strict laws on this type of cyber blackmail/bullying. I'm not saying these punishments befit the crimes, they don't, but some localities and our society in general treats cyber blackmail/bullying crimes more serious than others. We live in a very sensitive society now. Where people take their own lives when their profiles and nude photos, and sexual orientation is posted for the entire world to see. And sensitive so much that they make all sorts of laws thus increasing the possibilities of the authorities to arrest and DAs to prosecute people.
That is why some localities have strict laws on this type of cyber blackmail/bullying. I'm not saying these punishments befit the crimes, they don't, but some localities and our society in general treats cyber blackmail/bullying crimes more serious than others. We live in a very sensitive society now. Where people take their own lives when their profiles and nude photos, and sexual orientation is posted for the entire world to see. And sensitive so much that they make all sorts of laws thus increasing the possibilities of the authorities to arrest and DAs to prosecute people. And what I am saying, over and over again, is that Christians are lost in the weeds worrying about these temporal things. It is so clear. Truth: none of these things MATTER. They are transient. But judgment is PERMANENT. And Jesus has warned - in just specifically this exact sort of judicial case - that the way we judge our temporal, legal affairs, the way we conduct our supposedly "secular" judgments, sets the standard by which God will most certainly judge us. Which means that Christians condemn themselves to Hell when they adopt zero- tolerance, throw-away-the-key attitudes on civil and criminal matters. Throw away the key on somebody for his crime, and God is going to throw away the key on YOU for your sin. Send a boy to prison for ten years for a nude photo, and you have probably LITERALLY damned yourself to an eternity in Hell. Jesus warned about this. Christians are not permitted to separate church and state. How they handle themselves in their public affairs, their views on law enforcement and crime and punishment SET THE STANDARDS by which THEY THEMSELVES will CERTAINLY be judged by God. Jesus PROMISED this THREE TIMES, and yet Christians seem to be ignorant of it, as though, when it comes to secular law enforcement and what they DO - it all doesn't matter because they're forgiven by God. Jesus said that Christians are forgiven NOTHING if they do not forgive. In fact, in the parable, Jesus showed that Christians who WERE forgiven are called BACK by the ruler, UNFORGIVEN, and thrown into prison and torture for LATER not being forgiving AFTER they were forgiven. Jesus' parable makes it very clear that God's forgiveness of Christians' sins is absolute - whatever the sin (except perhaps blasphemy of the Holy Spirit) - BUT ALSO that this forgiveness is also PROVISIONAL - that the forgiven servant who THEN AFTERWARDS goes out and is himself unforgiving, will be hauled BACK before God and God will remove his forgiveness and damn him as he deserves, using EXACTLY the same harsh standard that the formerly forgiven Christian used. Jesus made this CLEAR in his parable. Christians refuse to see it. The path is strait and narrow and few make it through the gate BECAUSE they lie to themselves and grant themselves greater liberty than in fact God gave us. Christians are to be SHEEP, not lions. When Christians throw off the sheeplike nature and turn into lions, because of wrath, they leave the flock, and they end up judged on the standards by which they judged. Recall the Jubilee: ALL CRIMES, forgiven. NO RECORD kept. And the Sabbatical Year: ALL DEBTS, forgiven. This is the LAW, and Jesus UPHELD THE LAW. I see Christians obsessing about sexual sin. What is Christ's standard in the clear case of sexual sin: a stoning of a true adulteress - IF you are without sin, you may cast the first stone. But you shall be judged and punished by the standards by which you judged and punished. What this means is that every Christian with any sexual sin has to forgive all sexual sin in others, up to and including DEATH PENALTY OFFENSES under the laws of God: adultery. Because IF the Christian is unforgiving, BECAUSE he has sexual sins, IF he goes and executes the adulteress, then that Christian WILL BE THROWN INTO HELL. He judged death, in spite of his own sin. He was not merciful, unto death. And he is therefore unforgiven by God - and God has PROMISED to damn him and not forgive him - EXACTLY THE STANDARD THAT THE CHRISTIAN APPLIED. Baptism and belief DOES NOT GRANT SALVATION. Obedience is required, and the debtor forgiven the great debt by the judge was hauled BACK before the judge and the forgiveness stripped away, and he was thrown into the dungeon to be tortured because AFTER his forgiveness, he did not forgive. Jesus said, explicitly, that the Father will do exactly the same thing to you. Christians who tell themselves that because they are Christians and baptized and believe, they are forgiven, are liars. They lie to themselves. Jesus never said that. Jesus said that the requirement for forgiveness was to forgive, and that if you do not forgive, God will not forgive you. JEsus did not make any exception for believers, and he was speaking TO believers. Unforgiving Christians all go to Hell, by choice. This is the reality of the universe. Christians need to stop dicking around about this and pretending there is any confusion: their very salvation is at stake. Nobody should be more concerned about prison reform and taking the harshness and injustice out of the criminal justice system than Christians, because AS WE JUDGE we are judged. And because we are all sinners, we cannot stand up to a standard of harsh scrutiny. Apply that logic to this case, and the answer is clear. People are embarrassed by nude pictures. They should be. But that is the extent of the issue under God's law: it's embarrassing and shameful. IF, then, an unstable person murders herself because of pictures, that murder is NOT the responsibility of the one who did the shameful thing, under God's law. It is HER responsibility alone. OUR LAW must not punish the guy who took the picture and that the girl let him take, or that she sent him. If she let's herself be photographed nude, she has done something shameful. If that is then circulated, she bears her shame. That is just. If she kills herself, that is her crime. The punishment for the other who circulated the pictures is to be shamed himself. Imprison him, though, and treat him like a killer, as our law may, and you have substituted a rule of wrath for God's law. And God help you if you do that. Christians have the duty to tell people when they are walking into Hell - and excessive punishments for ANYTHING are standing into hellfire. The law cannot be fierce. It must be, rather, aimed at correction, and full of mercy. Unless we want to burn in hell for enforcing our own hellish laws, and setting ourselves up to be judged by standards that we cannot meet, thereby destroying our own soul. In God's Israel there were no cell phones. If a girl showed herself nude to a boy, neither was to be stoned, or enslaved, or tortured, or burnt, or even fined. They were shamed. If they fornicated, and she was a virgin, then he was married to her for life, unless her father said no (if she was a minor). There is no penalty under God's law for nudity other than being ashamed. That's it. And THEREFORE there cannot be any harsher laws under mere human law than that, because if we impose harsher punishments for nothing, God will use that harsh standard to judge us for everything - and none of us can bear that. We must each understand that the standards we apply in our greatest wrath are the very standards that God is going to judge us by. If we cannot contain our wrath, then we must keep ourselves away from the reins of power whereby we may damn ourselves to hell. The degree to which Christians have to be mild, turn the other cheek, admonish and correct with words, but not impose by force punishments that exceed God's law - that degree is set by Christ. It's only "optional" in the sense that going to Heaven is optional. You can choose to be a judgmental and hard man, and if you do, you will not go to heaven and you will be thrown, by God, into Hell at judgment - just as Jesus promised - because you cannot survive judgment by your own standards. Remember, it is not judgment for men's laws by your standards - it is applying your standards of harshness to your violations of GOD'S law. Remember that liars - simply lying - is a hellfire offense. Lie, and burn in hell. Fornicate, and burn in Hell. Did you ever lie? Did you ever fornicate? Then you ate the forbidden fruit and you are doomed to the fire. The only way OUT is the way Jesus said: forgive others their sins, and God will forgive you yours. That's it. "...and forgive us our trespasses as [like/in the manner that/to the extent that] we forgive those who trespass against us." This is a rather huge part of Christian Salvation, and yet Christians are blundering into these harsh judgmental statements all the time. You'd think they didn't understand their own God. Maybe they just haven't thought about it before. Well, that's my mission: to make Christians see what God said, exactly as he said it, and make them open their eyes and stop destroying themselves while making a mess of their religion.
So why are we still posting to each other on the matter:) You just wrote a book!:)
I am posting to really irritate Christians. They need to be irritated, because they need to start scratching the itch. And when they wheel to confront me, and open up their Scriptures, they will realize that all I am doing is putting God's words - and some of them will open their eyes. Another place where I'm going to post, as soon as the article hits the board, is on that poor clerk who went to jail in Kentucky. This is another place where God's rules are quite different from the human rules - BOTH the secular ones AND the religious ones. And now that the secular, paganizing state has forced the confrontation, Christians literally MUST open their eyes to the real rule of God and stop fighting the wrong fight. To the extent they cling to traditions that are wrong, they sink with the evil culture. People need to stop sinking.
#64. To: Vicomte13 (#63)
She went Taliban on her county, trying to impose her beliefs on the masses. There are still dozens of dry counties in Kentucky, imposed by those hard shell Baptists over a hundred years ago. I share many of your beliefs, for you and I as individuals. I have learned that others have a different set of standards/morals. I think they say that you can't legislate morality. Criminal laws, yes.
Frankly, the only ones here on LF that seem to get irritated by your comments are those that reject the Christian faith, atheists and agnostics. And now that the secular, paganizing state has forced the confrontation, Christians literally MUST open their eyes to the real rule of God and stop fighting the wrong fight. To the extent they cling to traditions that are wrong, they sink with the evil culture. Now, THAT is quite a good subject. Ping me when you get there. It will be interesting to say the least:)
For the record, I agree with you on the topic of this thread. Outlandish punishment for a stupid act between two teenagers.
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#36. To: Vicomte13 (#2)
The level of potential punishment is extremely disproportionate.
#43. To: redleghunter (#36)
#55. To: Vicomte13 (#43)
"Let us be very clear: these teenagers did something dumb and socially inappropriate, and that is all. The law should not be involved with this. And if it is, the law should be lenient and instructive to the teenagers, not barbaric and life ending."
#57. To: misterwhite (#55)
Yeah. Just like drunk driving. Hey, if no one was injured, no property damaged ... WTF? Right?
#60. To: Vicomte13 (#57)
Yes. Like that, but much moreso, because drunk driving can kill people. Dumb pictures cannot. Sending nude pictures of each other is a far more trivial thing than driving a ton of metal while inebriated.
#61. To: redleghunter (#60)
The harsh laws stem from recent (within the past few years) events where young people/kids committed suicide because some idiot posted their photos on the internet.
#62. To: Vicomte13 (#61)
It is so clear. Truth: none of these things MATTER.
#63. To: redleghunter (#62)
Replies to Comment # 63. Another place where I'm going to post, as soon as the article hits the board, is on that poor clerk who went to jail in Kentucky. This is another place where God's rules are quite different from the human rules - BOTH the secular ones AND the religious ones.
#65. To: Vicomte13 (#63)
I am posting to really irritate Christians.
#66. To: Vicomte13 (#63)
End Trace Mode for Comment # 63.
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