Re: Reply

"Maturity" is a rather nebulous term that can mean different things in different contexts,

No. Maturity is a biological term denoting a certain stage in the life cycle of an organism or part of an organism. Any other usage is not literal and should not be taken as such. Example: a butterfly's "butterfly" is mature, but never its egg, caterpillar or chrysalis. Unlike in butterflies, in humans it may be hard to tell apart mature and immature life stages, but it's still a discrete variable, and either you are or are not. That said, its non-literal use is always problematic. Example: "Sam" from I am Lucy, the movie that launched Dakota Fanning to fame, is mature notwithstanding being mentally retarded - he was able to reproduce, and procreated Lucy. That's being mature. However, many people would think he isn't because he does not have the higher-cognition functioning of the typical mature person; but that is because they don't realize they are using "mature" in a metaphorical way to refer to something which the word does not denote.

"Knowledge" is very relative, because different people acquire different types of knowledge

What I have more problems with, in using the knowledge argument, is that its solution is plain, and yet, people who use the knowledge argument (and Lee Lette is not the exception, so far) also want to ban its solution. If children don't have knowledge of sexuality, wouldn't the obvious solution would be to give them that knowledge so they have it? It makes no sense to simultaneously argue that they don't have necessary knowledge and support preventing them from acquiring it. What it reminds me of, are voting qualification laws under Jim Crow, preventing blacks from acquiring qualifications and using that lack of qualifications to ban them from voting. Somewhat similar, the starting strides of women towards some authoritative professions: at the same time being banned from the schools teaching them, and using the lack of academic qualifications to keep them out.