Georgia's new crime: Sex while black

Genarlow Wilson was just 17 years old when they ripped him away from his life and family and hauled him off to a Georgia prison.

In a society where blacks often face bitter racism and inequality, Wilson excelled -- he was a top student at his high school and an aspiring football player who was garnering talk of recruitment into the college level. His future was bright.

That is, until the forces of conservatism and sexual repression in this country got their sinister clutches on him. While at a high school party one night, Wilson received consensual oral sex from a girl two years younger than him. And as murderers, rapists and white-collar CEOs were running around killing people, raping people and stealing billions of dollars, Wilson was arrested for messing around with another teenager. Apparently, in Georgia, fellatio is a felony. Who knew?

Wilson was charged as an adult with aggravated child molestation, despite the trivial fact that he wasn't an adult and he didn't molest any children, and was offered an olive branch by the open-minded and forward-thinking DA: Become a registered sex offender and be ostracized by society for the rest of your life for getting a hummer, or rot in prison like a criminal. I see a Robert Frost parallel here, but I don't think I'll go there.

Wilson rejected the deal, not because he thought it was a miscarriage of justice, but because he was concerned he wouldn't be able to see his 9-year-old sister anymore, or even have his own kids someday, because sex offender status would require him to stay away from children. So in an effort to keep his family together and preserve his future, Wilson went to a jury, which obviously found him guilty, given he is black and this is the South we're talking about.

Ten years in prison they gave him. And in an instant, the American justice system became a complete fraud. Luckily, the Georgia Supreme Court was able to glean some reason from the ashes, and it overturned the sentence, calling the sentence "cruel and unusual punishment."

Justice Leah Ward Sears wrote for the majority:

Although society has a significant interest in protecting children from premature sexual activity, we must acknowledge that Wilson's crime does not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children … For the law to punish Wilson as it would an adult, with the extraordinary harsh punishment of 10 years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole, appears to be grossly disproportionate to his crime.

But Wilson still spent two years behind bars. I can only imagine the personal transformation after two years in a Georgia prison. I think it's safe to say he didn't come out the same person.

I don't think I even have to make any arguments about the fundamental breakdown in this country when it comes to our perception of sex, or how we have a bunch of prude old men in charge of making laws, because this case really speaks for itself. It's an overzealous attempt to control something you can't possibly control: Human nature. But they'll keep trying. And once again, the wheels of progress in this country turn, turn, turn.