words have meaning: minors are children.
Sexual contact with a minor is sexual contact with a child.
Sexual contact with a minor child is abhorrent.
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As posted a page ago, the synonyms of abhorrent include, “offensive” and “repugnant.” These words are adjectives, not verbs and reflect personal feelings towards the actual offense of “Sexual Misconduct - Involving a Minor.” I don’t care what the explicit misconduct is, I find it offensive, I find it repugnant, I find it obscene, I find it detestable, nay, I find it abhorrent.
Would you prefer the charge to be more indirect such as “lascivious conduct with a minor?” Perhaps, “lewd?” They remove the concept of “sexual” at least.
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Quibbling about the meaning of the word minor is pointless in this situation.
I’m sorry that your friend ended his life. Of course you may feel better, thinking that his victims weren’t “children” but they were. You have to realize that the law draws the line between child and adult, not the abuser nor his friends.
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I would prefer that the charges be the actual charges (Sexual Misconduct - Involving Minor). Why is that so difficult?
Id imagine most people find them repugnant, obscene, detestable and a whole host of other adjectives, but that doesn’t change the actual wording. Why is that so difficult?
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Because it’s a distinction without a difference, unless there’s a nuance here that’s yet to be made clear.
To my mind “Sexual Misconduct - involving minor” and “abhorrent behaviors towards minor children” are exactly the same thing.
What hair is it that you are trying to split here?
If the child was 17, even a very mature 17, in the eyes of the law, she’s still a child. And the behavior is no more or less abhorrent.
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I think you should take this up with Safe Sport, maybe you can get them to change the charge to something more of your liking. Until you do though, it remains “Sexual Misconduct - Involving Minor”.
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Is this really the hill you want to die on?
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I could ask the same of you.
Yes - you absolutely DO have the right to push back.
But who specifically are you saying is blurring a line between reality and fantasy?
I’m going to call you out AGAIN. There is a poster using an alter on this thread who has indeed brought up sexual contact involving a 12 year old. You are bluntly either…
- Saying that this poster is an exaggerator who is blurring the line between fantasy and reality. Which is a polite way of saying that this allegation is bullshit, and RG did stuff, but that allegation is a “fantasy” and not what the Safe Sport investigation and ban was about
or
- Saying that you do not dispute any of the allegations that are publicly out there, which would imply that you do accept the allegations out there that he had sexual contact with multiple underage people including someone as young as 12. And if you are actually accepting that this all possibly is true, and simultaneously that these allegations are somehow only “sexual contact with a minor” but anyone who goes so far as to describe it as ABHORRENT and involving CHILDREN is making up fantasies in their own heads is going too far, and shouldnt be speaking like that. In fact… they should just “shut up.”
Number 1 is your right. You can choose not to believe anyone who came forward. RG was your friend.
Number 2 is also your right. But own it. If that’s your position, you are indeed saying that sexual contact with a 12 year old is bad, but not awful? And that people who are talking about it should “just shut up.”
It’s fair to say that you did not specifically LEGITIMIZE anything. But I am absolutely correct in terms of the Edmund Burke quote. Telling people to “just shut up” has an obvious implication.
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This will come as a shock to you, Virginia Horse Mom, but your options aren’t the only ones that exist … how about this
- You are aware that about 38 years ago, RG had a 17 year old girlfriend. But that’s all you know … you don’t know anything about anyone else, and certainly not about any 12 year old. You are not now, nor have you ever been a fan of teenage girls dating adult men, but that’s beside the point. You also believe that trying a dead man on social media and as anonymous posters on a bulletin board is not right. Further, you believe that as a consequence of his own decisions, RG may have thrown his name in the mud, but you don’t take kindly to people who didn’t know him from Adam dragging it through.
The End
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When people use words like abhorrent, sordid, and disgusting, they are not claiming that these are the legal terms that should be used to describe his acts. They are using words that describe their own emotions in reaction to his conduct. They have every right to use those words. I think I understand your desire to sanitize the description of what he did, and “misconduct” is a nice bland catch-all word that can mean a lot or it can mean next to nothing.
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Safesport itself has disclosed multiple victims. The narrative of the one time “relationship” with a 17 year old is false.
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I’m speaking to personal knowledge. It’s not hard to imagine that if he had one 17 year old girlfriend, there could have been others.
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@Roser123 wrote:
Theres a difference between “ abhorrent behaviors toward MINOR CHILDREN” and “sexual conduct involving a minor”.
What you stated above is your opinion. It is not a fact. We all grasp that he was charged with the latter. We get it. We got it. No question.
What you are being willfully obtuse about is your insistence that is not possible that what he did, his sexual conduct involving a minor, could be perceived by anyone as abhorrent behavior toward minor children. You are insistent that your opinion is fact. It is not a fact.
Minors are people under the age of 18. Fact.
They are children in the eyes of the law. Fact.
People are free to perceive his charges as abhorrent behavior toward minor children, and you cannot deny them the privilege of having an opinion that counters yours. Fact.
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You are not the only person on this thread with personal knowledge.
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You can perceive it anyway you want … no question. I’m not being obtuse at all - just stating the actual charges. Fact.
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Obviously, but when speaking from personal knowledge, I can only include my own.
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I truly appreciate that you’re willing to engage in a civil discussion about this. If you knew Rob Gage personally, this is beyond awful. I have lost friends to suicide and it’s a very hard wound to heal.
I expressed this earlier in the thread, but it bears repeating. I absolutely believe all the people who have come forward and described Rob as a great guy and a great horseman, generous and kind. I also believe that he is guilty of the behavior that led to his Safe Sport ban. People aren’t all black or all white; it’s entirely possible that he had every positive trait his grieving friends have credited him with and also had multiple inappropriate sexual relationships with minors. They are not mutually exclusive. It’s simplistic and comforting for people to decide he was a monster because of the latter; rather than reconciling themselves to the the fact both the former AND the latter are true and correct. And it’s got to be really hard to hear someone you liked and admired described this way.
Please understand this, though - most people in this thread are not reacting to the person you knew. They are reacting to the sexual relationships with minors. And that colors everything else. If someone has also been a victim of abuse, your attempt to draw some sort of distinction between very awful behavior and slightly less awful behavior feels like the minimizing and dismissing we’ve heard regarding our own experiences, and the kind of justification that leads people to not report or talk about their own experience.
I am sorry about your friend and I wish you peace and healing.
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I guess because I do consider a trainer over the age of 21 dating a student even someone else’s student under the age of 17 abhorrent behavior.
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Wow. That was really nice … it even made me tear up. I appreciate your words.
Thank you.
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