I have had the opportunity to speak to the society staff who are working specifically with young gay people and they have influenced my thinking. People who wish the age to be kept at 18 talk about protecting young people during the maturing process. One of my regrets about the whole debate is that no image is given to homosexual young people as to how they might constructively lead their lives. The concentration is always upon anal intercourse. Of course there are people who are ambivalent and uncertain in their teenage years.
Some people are ambivalent and uncertain throughout their lives.
Those uncertainties about identity can be just as strong for young heterosexual people. We load on to that minority a burden of moral responsibility, a burden of pressure from society, yet hardly seem to pay attention to the immoralities of heterosexual people, the abuse of children by heterosexual people and the abuse in families by heterosexual people of young children. I cannot help but feel that there is a scapegoating procedure going on here which is not new in history and not new in our society. I share with my colleagues concern over the way in which sexual intercourse, for so many vulnerable young people, has been detached in their minds, it seems, from commitment, mutuality and understanding. For such young people there is a degree of protection at law under the child protection provisions if they are used as they could be.