ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 8, 1996 TAG: 9609090057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SANTA ANA, CALIF.
SOURCE: VINCENT J. SCHOLDOLSKI CHICAGO TRIBUNE
ORANGE COUNTY social workers argue the family bond in some cases is more important. Critics say the men should be prosecuted.
In a practice that has stirred legal and moral controversy, social workers in one of California's most conservative counties have been encouraging the marriages of pregnant teen-agers to the adult men who impregnated them.
In the past two years, at least 15 girls, some as young as 13, have been allowed to marry or to live with the men who made them pregnant after social workers in Orange County intervened on their behalf with juvenile court authorities.
Some of the men the girls are marrying are in their 30s. The cases have angered law enforcement officials who insist that the men, rather than being allowed to live with the girls, let alone becoming their husbands, should be prosecuted for statutory rape or child molestation.
At a time when politicians across the nation are grappling with the problem of teen-age pregnancies, the Orange County practice is stretching the dimensions of the family values debate.
Case workers in Orange County's Social Services Agency who have helped clear the way for the marriages argue that they were acting in the best interest of all involved.
Creating or maintaining a family structure is more important, the advocates argue, than criminally prosecuting the adults - even if, as in some cases, the men were allowed to live with and support the minor girls without marrying them.
In each case, both parties to the arrangement wanted to proceed with the relationship and at least one parent of the girls had given consent, officials said.
But many within the social agency itself object to the practice, arguing that it is impossible for teen-age girls to fathom the commitment of marriage and that the unions are tantamount to marrying the victim to her abuser.
``These are each individual cases,'' said Larry Leaman, the head of social services for Orange County. ``There are no easy answers. These are all tough decisions.''
Social welfare experts agreed that individual circumstances were important, but that the practice of helping teen-age girls marry adults was not wise.
``This is not good social policy,'' said Paul Carlo, director of the Center on Child Welfare at the University of Southern California. ``My general opinion is that a 13-year-old is not in a position to offer such a consent.''
Some experts also questioned the motivation of the men involved in some of the cases since they were confronted with the choice of marrying their teen-aged partners or facing a possible jail sentence.
The issue, first noted last week by the Los Angeles Times, is a vexing one for Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who has been a staunch proponent of prosecuting men who have sex with minors. Last year Wilson launched an $8 million campaign to track down and prosecute males in statutory rape cases.
In California, sex between an adult and someone age 17 or younger is considered statutory rape. When the minor is under 14, it is considered child molestation. In neither case is consent on the part of the minor a legitimate defense.
``If these are marriages of convenience to avoid the statutory rape law, it is wrong and it has to stop,'' said Sean Walsh, spokesman for the governor.
``We have to stop the social pathology that says it is all right for a 13-year-old to have sex with a 30-year-old. At one level you have to ask yourself: What are they going to talk about at the dinner table?''
Walsh said that Wilson understood that there should not be a blanket rule against all such unions.
``In some cases it might be advantageous to have a male presence in the house, perhaps 17-year-olds and 20-year-olds, but 12-and 13-year-olds are another matter,'' Walsh said.
Leaman, the county social services director, said he was not aware of the marriage practice until he received a memo from angry staff members in June. He then changed the rules governing such cases, requiring each of them to be handled by management personnel, not lower-level case workers.
Leaman said that while there was no general rule that fits all cases, marriages of 13-year-olds ``should not occur, and those of 15-and 16-year-olds should be rare.''
``These people are not being raped,'' Leaman said. ``These are cases of consensual sex. In some cases you have a couple that want to get married and will get married no matter what happens.''
Police officials say the practice is frustrating for them in that they find social workers intervening in cases targeted for prosecution. They also insist that the actions ultimately encourage sex between adults and minors.
``If police officers knew that all speeding tickets would be dismissed, would you really make all those traffic stops?'' said Corrine Loomis, a spokeswoman for the police department in the Orange County town of Placentia. ``And what is the point of not speeding under such circumstances?
``This is child abuse, plain and simple,'' said Loomis, who has handled sexual abuse cases in Orange County for six years.
Further complicating the situation is the fact that all but one of the girls involved are Hispanic.
Some community workers have suggested that teen-age marriage is a social phenomenon among the mainly Mexican community that must be understood. Others have argued that such marriages are common in neither Mexico nor the Mexican-American community in California. They note that the age of consent in Mexico is 18, just as it is in California.
``I have people on my staff saying this is common in Mexico and others saying the people who think that are angry, white racists,'' Leaman said.
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