Even the most "progressive" readers of The Washington Post are pounding the newspaper's editor over an opinion piece published two weeks ago that called for decriminalizing "consensual sexual activity" between high school students and teachers.

CNSNews.com is reporting that the August 31 oped by Betsy Karasik, an artist and former attorney from Washington DC, has sparked a firestorm of outrage in all quarters, including the paper's mostly liberal audience.

In the article, Karasik was commenting on the case of Stacey Dean Rambold, a former Montana high school teacher who received just 30 days in jail for raping a 14 year-old student who later committed suicide.

“As protesters decry the leniency of Rambold’s sentence — he will spend 30 days in prison after pleading guilty to raping 14-year-old Cherice Morales, who committed suicide at age 16 — I find myself troubled for the opposite reason," Karasik wrote.

“I don’t believe that all sexual conduct between underage students and teachers should necessarily be classified as rape, and I believe that absent extenuating circumstances, consensual sexual activity between teachers and students should not be criminalized,” she wrote.

Response to the article was immediate, prompting an abuse victim to write a letter to the editor describing the after-effects she suffered after being abused by a high school teacher at the age of 15.

“At the time, I believed it to be consensual. He was never violent, so in my 15-year-old mind, everything was okay. But everything was not okay. He was emotionally abusive and coerced me into sharing my body in ways I was not ready for nor able to understand; it has taken me years to heal from the things he said and did. At one point, I fell into a deep, three-year depression, and I found myself at the brink of suicide more than once."

She adds: “Ms. Karasik has no right to tell those of us who have struggled with humiliation, regret and fear that what happened to us was not a crime.”

Even the most liberal publications, such as Slate and the Forward Progressives blog blasted the Post's "appalling" defense of teacher/student sex.

"She [Karasik] essentially says that those older adults who might target minors for sexual relationships shouldn’t always be viewed as criminals, but rather good people just needing a little 'rehab',” writes Allen Clifton of Forward Progressives.  "Honestly, the article is pure trash. Dangerous trash, at that. There’s no nice way to put it and absolutely no way to sugarcoat this fact."

Clifton goes on to say that he normally likes the Post,  but "the fact that the Washington Post allowed something this disgusting to get published really took me by surprise."

Karasik later tried to defend herself and blamed the media for distorting her message.

“The vast majority of commentators fixated on my suggestion about decriminalizing consensual sex, claiming that I condone or even advocate sex between students and teachers," she complained. "That is just totally false; I clearly state all teachers who have sexual relations with students should be fired and prohibited from teaching unless the law deems them rehabilitated. There is a big difference which seems to have been lost on people.”

However, she still says the teachers who have consensual sex with students should be fired, not prosecuted.

Newsbusters' Tim Graham asks: "This is one of those editorials that make the reader question who on Earth at The Washington Post wants their daughters to be free to 'experiment' with middle-aged teachers over the lunch break in a parked car?"

He is encouraging outraged readers to contact Doug Feaver, the Post's "reader representative at readers@washpost.com.

 

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