To the editor:

It’s 2004, and female rape victims are still held responsible for their own rapes.

Under Kansas law, sexual intercourse with a child 14 years of age or younger is rape. No child, male or female, is capable of granting competent consent to sexual intercourse with an adult. What if the victim is a drunken 13-year-old girl? Capable of consent? Not by a long shot.

Don Marquis wrote in his recent letter to the editor that it’s “reasonable to distinguish” between acts committed by 19-year-olds and those committed by older men. Really? It seems the “boys will be boys” rape defense is still alive and well in Douglas County.

Do you believe the four men who participated in that rape didn’t know she was a child? Do you believe it’s not really rape if the rapists are young men and the girl is 13? Just “stupid” behavior? You’re an adult if you’re a 13-year-old female, but not an adult if you’re a 17- to 28-year-old male?

That child was seduced, betrayed and raped by her adult male companions. And then Judge Martin described her as an active participant in those rapes. No child is responsible for what an adult does to them.

Shouldn’t we expect our courts, at least, to place full responsibility for the rape of a child on the rapist?

Kathleen Rogge,

Lawrence