Elect candidates who pledge: #IWillCodifyConsent!
Codifying CONSENT into law is the critical key to conquering sexual assault! Yet no US state or territory actually defines the noun, CONSENT in its laws. How can we know what the verb “to consent” means without knowing what the noun, “consent,” actually means?
……..We can’t!
No law can list all the many ways a crime can take place. Telling us some non-permitted sexual behaviors fails to convey the wide range of ALL defiling, heinous and injurious sexual conduct. Our current method of establishing what constitutes criminal sexual behavior creates laws that act like a Swiss cheese umbrella, full of legal loopholes! Only by defining consent in our laws, will people grasp how to behave, particularly because the ancient doctrine, Nulla Poena Sine Lege, “What is not prohibited by law is permissible,” applies to all sexual assault laws.
Although attempts to provide provisions about the verb form “to consent” exist in 24% of our states and territories, without a single state defining the noun consent, these provisions create confusion, fail to protect against sexual predators, miss the mark and often mock what consent really is.
Consent is Freely Given, Knowledgeable and Informed Agreement, #FGKIA. Model Penal Code says so. Nuremberg Code says so. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) says so. My TEDx Talk says so. The penal code of every state and territory of the US, as well as our Federal Code, should all say so!
Watch this TEDxTalk
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