Yes, daughters are actual grown women who can make their own decisions!

Unfortunately, some dimwits in a courtroom appear to think otherwise. So, let’s examine the lastest round of incestophobic persecution, this time in the State of Washington.

Two attorneys sparred over the question of whether incest is really all that bad during a sentencing hearing in Island County Superior Court Thursday.

Good, society needs to see that there is more than one side to the story.

Although only a difference of two months were at stake, prosecution and defense attorneys argued aggressively over how much time Jed I. Starr should spend in prison. Starr, on Oak Harbor resident, pleaded guilty by way of an Alford’s plea to incest Nov. 1. An Alford’s plea means he doesn’t admit his guilt but realizes he would be found guilty at trial.

He shouldn’t have been on trial in the first place, let alone put into prison.

Starr had a sexual relationship with his daughter, beginning when she was 18 years old, and impregnated her, court documents state.

Stop right there. 18 years old. By any definition of the word, this lady is an adult, and as an adult she has the right to have sex with and procreate with whoever she wishes to.

In the end, San Juan County Judge Katherine Loring, who was filling in for Judge Alan Hancock, agreed with the prosecution and sentenced Starr to 14 months in prison; the standard sentence range was from 12 to 14 months.

Which is outrageous. 14 months in jail, for falling in love with the ‘wrong’ woman and having a sexual relationship with her. Any idiot could see that this is a grave injustice, especially since this ‘crime’ has no victim.

Loving said she found the defense’s argument that there was no victim to be “offensive” and the parent-daughter power dynamic was a key component to the crime. She also said Starr did not seem to express any remorse for his daughter.

She can be as offended as she likes, it doesn’t make her right. Can a GROWN WOMAN consent to sex, or can’t she? Just because he is her father does not change the fact. I know, from experience! Furthermore, why should he express remorse when he has caused no suffering? All he was doing is what normal human beings do the world over, having sex with his partner, the fact she is also his daughter is beside the point!

During the hearing, Steve McKay, Starr’s attorney, compared incest laws to archaic sodomy laws of the not-so-distant past and argued that there’s no rational reason for sex between adult, consenting relatives to be illegal, beyond the “visceral” reaction to the thought of incest.

I fully agree with him, and I’ve made this very same point in my blog numerous times. That something is unpopular does NOT mean it should be criminalized just because most people would not want to do it. Tyranny of the masses is STILL TYRANNY.

He said the state’s incest statute is rarely used and three other states have repealed such laws.

If that is true, this is good news. For the record, Rhode Island has never had incestophobic legislation beyond consangs being unable to marry legally.

“What evil is it we are trying to protect society from?” he asked rhetorically

Good question, shame it was never answered.

McKay even quoted former presidential candidate Rick Santorum: “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”

Santorum, however, was not saying he wanted any of those acts to be legal.

He may not have intended to say it should be legal, he was simply stating a fact. One MUST accept that some people have alternative orientations and needs from what is considered the norm, unless you want the state to legislate what exactly is and is not permitted in the bedroom. Here is the deal, you don’t have to AGREE with what other people want to do, but you can accept that others have the right to persue these relationships.

The defense attorney also focused on the culpability of Starr’s daughter, saying she was just as guilty as Starr is.

I however do not see either of them as ‘guilty’ of anything. All they did is have a relationship, which was, a mutual decision.

Deputy Prosecutor Michael Safstrom argued that the young woman was vulnerable and desperate for a parent’s affection when Starr began having sex with her. She spent her childhood being abused and neglected by her mother and in a series of foster parents; she also was a victim of sexual abuse as a child and had overdosed three different times.

She had a bad childhood which included sexual abuse, millions of people do, but this DOES NOT mean that they’re incapable of deciding when and with whom they want to have sex once they are of age. Nobody would make this same argument if she had been sleeping with an unrelated man. If we followed the illogic to it’s natural conclusion, we would believe that sexual abuse victims are unable to consent to any sex. This is demonstrably false.

The woman had never met Starr until he suddenly showed up in her life when she was 18 after she was hospitalized for a seizure. She was homeless and lonely. She needed a caring parent, Safstrom said, but instead Starr moved her to Whidbey, supplied her with alcohol and had sex with her.

So he took her in and he cared for her, as any loving parent would do. That they later formed a relationship IS NOT proof he is some vile abuser. Also note ‘he supplied her with alcohol’… so, are we saying she didn’t have a choice in whether or not to drink an alcoholic beverage. Last I checked, in nearly ALL countries, the legal drinking age is… you guessed it, 18. She was old enough to buy her own if she wanted to.

Is it so unusual for a man to buy the woman he loves a bottle of wine now? Notice how the words have been twisted to cast this man in the worst possible light. Oh, and just because they drank together DOES NOT MEAN that they had sex just BECAUSE of the alcohol. I’m sure most of my readers will agree, just because one is drunk, does not mean we jump on and copulate with the nearest member of the opposite sex. It doesn’t work that way, even for regulars.

Safstrom said Starr has consistently denied he was at fault and blamed his daughter. In a telephone call, Starr claimed what happened wasn’t a big deal “because in the state of Washington you can legally marry a goat now,” the prosecutor said.

That doesn’t seem to be blaming anyone, he was stating that it wasn’t, or at least shouldn’t have been a big deal. Oh, and if it is TRUE that you can marry a goat in that State, then those laws are even more fucked up than I imagined. However, I do not know and he may just have been taking the piss out of the situation, knowing he was going to get jailed anyway, no matter what he said.

Safstrom said the child who resulted from the incest is also a victim and will have to live with the knowledge of her parentage for the rest of her life.

That is NOT the fault of the childs parents, if you remove the stigma, you remove the need for such shame. The child, in this instance, is a victim of incestophobic bigotry. The state has removed the father from this child. How horrible is THAT!

Four people spoke in support of Starr during the hearing and others wrote letters describing him as a caring person and a hard worker. One woman said he’s an amazing person who does everything he can to help others and is an amazing father.

EXACTLY. So what they’ve done is take a productive and valued member of society, and put him in jail for having the ‘wrong’ relationship. That four people came to his defence is amazing though, and goes to show that not everyone is a hater. We must remember, we have allies, probably more than we realize. Would this people have said this of this man if he was a predatory figure? No, they would most certainly have not.

Starr spoke before he was sentenced. He said he was sorry for any pain he caused anyone, but was “deeply hurt” by Safstrom’s characterization of his actions.

As any sane person would be. Stafstrom took the facts, twisted them and made him out to be some sexual predator when that is clearly NOT the case.

“He has no idea what really happened,” he said.

Of course he didn’t, how could he, he had been brainwashed by society into believing a bunch of incestophobic nonsense and so every fact he was presented with would have been run through a certain filter which distorted his interpretation of those facts. So he put 2 and 2 together and came up with 5.

In a statement to the Department of Corrections, Starr wrote that he and his daughter fell in love and had a child together.

Exactly, they fell in love. Why should this be a crime at all? It should not be. There are THREE victims here, Starr, his daughter, and their child. The latest victims of state incestophobic persecution.