Perhaps the Errors of His Youth Should not Disqualify Kavanaugh

  I remember the term from high school -- "depantsing" -- and I think of how throughout my life I have heard of people doing what is called, "mooning."
   And, in an age of the #MeToo movement, I wonder if it is few, the people who have been convicted of such crimes -- for sexual assault and indecent exposure they surely are, and those two things are crimes.
   And, I wonder if part of the reason they are so easily excused, is that these are teenagers who so often are the perpetrators. Are youth more inclined to such things? Or, do we give them a little more leeway to grow up?
    And, I think of Brett Kavanaugh, and the accusations against him. Boys will be boys, goes the saying. The good lot of us were known to have sown some wild oats back in our youth, goes the argument. What kind of hypocrites are we, if we hold him liable 36 years later while most all of us had some kind of failings in our youth?
   Now, if you think you know the point I have come to talk to you about, you don't know the full of it. I haven't mentioned a lot of it yet. And, I'm rather sure you haven't guessed.
    So, let me tell you. Let me explain.
    A couple days ago, I was reading in my scriptures, Moroni 8 in the Book of Mormon. Now, you may wonder what this has to do with Brett Kavanaugh. Again, let me explain. It speaks of baptizing children, and says children do not need baptism, for they are not capable of sin, for the law is not given unto them. If I understand the scriptures correctly, if children cannot sin, they do not need repentance.
   So, Brett Kavanaugh? He was a teenager. If he committed the sexual offense, it came well after the age being spoken of in the Book of Mormon.
   But, notice this: It seems the reason children are not accountable for their sins, is that they haven't been fully taught. Once they are taught right from wrong, then they become accountable. Now, children are taught and raise by their children through their teenage years. In fact, they need a parent's nurturing, teaching guidance in the teen years as much as any.
   They may be baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at age 8, but they are still learning. I would suppose part of that learning is doing wrong so they learn that it is wrong. Have you noticed we do not hold teenagers to the same legal standards as adults? We have juvenile courts for juveniles and a separate set of rules and punishments.
   So, what I am saying, is that just as children are not considered accountable for their sins, and cannot be baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ until age 8, so the child continues the learning process, and continues to become more and more accountable.
   Mankind acknowledges as much with these laws giving them leeway as minors.
   So, should Kavanaugh -- if he did commit the offenses he is accused of -- be locked off the Supreme Court for them? I think there are others things that might should disqualify him, but perhaps the errors of his youth should not. 

Note: Edited 10/16 to correct an error. In the second paragraph, the words "public exposure" were changed to "indecent exposure."