Most high school seniors are excitedly preparing to put on their cap and gown and looking forward to the future right now. Kaitlyn Hunt, 18, is instead fighting bigotry and hoping she won’t be forced to go to jail instead of college. Her crime? Dating another student – a female student. Kaitlyn’s family took her story public on May 17th, via Facebook.
Hunt was a highly respected student at Florida’s Sebastian River High School with good grades and participation in cheerleading, basketball and chorus. She was even voted “most school spirit.”
All of that changed when she started dating a fellow student, a girl she met on the basketball team, at the beginning of the school year.
According to Kaitlyn’s father, Steven R. Hunt, Jr., the relationship caused waves at the school from the start. His daughter was dropped from the basketball team because the coach feared a same-sex relationship would bring unwanted “drama.”
Then the family was shocked and devastated when police came to their home in February to arrest Kaitlyn. She was charged with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12 – 16 years of age.
Kaitlyn was 18 and her 15-year-old girlfriend's parents pressed charges. Hunt’s mother, Kelley Hunt Smith, says the other set of parents have made it their mission to destroy her daughter’s life, all because they can’t accept that their child was in a same sex relationship.
The girl’s family petitioned the school board and got Katilyn expelled from school, weeks before graduation. This decision was made in spite of a judge declaring she could continue to attend school as long as she didn’t have contact with the girl.
Kelley explained,
“They are out to destroy my daughter, because they feel like she ‘made’ their daughter gay. They see being gay as wrong and they blame my daughter. Of course, I see it 100% differently. I don’t see or label these girls as gay. They are teenagers in high school experimenting with their sexuality – with mutual consent. And even if their daughter is gay, who cares? She is still their daughter.”
The heartache for the Hunt family continues even with Kaitlyn forced out of the school. Steven said their younger child is also a student at Sebastian River High School and is forced to see words like “criminal,” “rapist” and “child abuser” written about her sister on the bathroom walls at school, despite his repeated request that the school to do something about it.
Kaitlyn has been offered a plea deal of house arrest for two years, plus a year of probation. This would delay her entering the next phase of her life and stay on her permanent adult record, limiting her career choices.
Her parents say all of this is because she fell in love with another girl and that girl’s parents couldn’t handle it. They are urging the public to step up to “stop the hate, free Kate” by signing a petition they will present to the Indian River County State Attorney’s Office.
Live and Let Live
ReplyDeleteI like your Christ. I do not like your Christians.
ReplyDeleteThey are so unlike your Christ.
Ghandi
This seems so typical of Southern "Christians"
I suppose that the younger girls parents will shun their daughter a bit later on in life for being gay. Such a loss for all concerned.
I would hope that the judge would be more enlightened. But this is the South after all. Civil rights do not appear to apply to sexual orientation yet. Perhaps in the 22nd century......
Good.
ReplyDeletePromote the spirit of sodom and gomorah and expulsion is least of the worries when eternity is involved.
stop promoting a disgusing spirit
The headline is misleading. Ms. Hunt is not being prosecuted for dating, or for a lesbian relationship. She's being prosecuted for sex acts with an underage person.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why it's a "battery" charge exactly.
But I see the mentality and the agenda. You're saying it's okay for homosexuals to have sex with children.
When I was an 18 year old High School student if I would have had a sexual relationship with a 15 year old girl I would have been expelled from school and faced criminal charges. Fast forward to today - if my 18 year old grandson were to get caught having a sexual relationship with a 15 year old girl he would face expulsion from school and criminal charges. But, because it's a 'same sex' relationship, we're supposed to feel sorry for the 18 year old girl, because they were ‘consenting’ – that’s the point of the law; 15 year olds have not yet reached the age of consent - what blatant hypocrisy and yet ANOTHER attempt to force acceptance of homosexuality on everyone!
ReplyDeleteI don't understand...Kaitlyn is 18 and her co-respondent is 15. That's illegal in most states. I don't see the legal matter as bigotry. I'm personally sorry for both the girls and the parents. But, if a priest is excoriated for having an affair with a 15-year-old, then the same law applies. They really need to reconsider those "age of consent" laws. If the two people are two years apart in age, then what's the big whoop?
ReplyDeleteDid they actually catch them in bed together that led to the charges or what? Not enough info. If it was just because they were hanging around together and went no farther and the parents freaked thats one thing. Although age of consent laws do need to loosen up a bit in regards to teenagers who are close together in age, it is still statutory rape since she is 18 and the other 15. If they did catch them doing anything.
ReplyDeleteand side showwhere in your book does it say that a women lying with a woman is wrong? proof that god is a man.
Amazing how we hate the control of government in most all aspects of life...except age of consent. There, the government is right?
ReplyDeleteThis sort of thing belongs between the parents and the kids. Besides, after experiencing orgasm what's to fear?
Many countries have a much lower age of consent. Spain for example.
I don't see their society as a bunch of child raping pederasts and neither do they.
And with internet, these kids are camera-whoring for the world anyway.
The new generations don't see much wrong with it...outside the USA.
Times are changing.
This is not about government in general. It is not about orgasms. It is about turning children into sexual compulsives by sexually exploiting them, when they are (1) dependent (2) immature. A childish perception of sex will become their understanding of it.
DeleteA lower age of consent means more impulsive and compulsive behavior. It means more disease, more pregnancy, more rape. It means a loss of trust in, and respect for, adults who exploit children.