I have no idea why you think that is somehow surprising. I favor an age of consent, and "never have sex with an underage girl" is an obvious implication. What's more surprising is that I'm willing to be compassionate towards any exceptions at all.

Arguing that everyone should be punished and penalized for having relationships that offend you and "polite" society when there is no demonstrable harm in evidence is not compassionate. Throwing a few band aids to the guys you just beat up simply because you didn't approve of their choices does not alter that fact.

No, your reading comprehension failed. See that word "just"? It specifies the meaning (especially common in mathematics) where something that appears to be different isn't fundamentally different and does not need special treatment. As in... in the conditions for declaring a stalemate in chess, "perpetual check" is a special case of "repeated positions".

Mathematical mumbo-jumbo.

That doesn't work in reality. Working hard to uncover evidence doesn't mean you can find it.

Yet that is a requirement to justify proclaiming someone guilty, which is why the system of American jurisprudence has due process, and which is why your anti-democratic solution based on making assumptions and providing sentimentality-based advantages to one demographic over another leads to extreme draconian measures and precedents. This is why the burden of proof is placed on the accuser, because it's so easy to make an accusation. If someone is guilty, then chances are they will be found out in time if the proper work is done. Democracy is not supposed to provide easy solutions; it's supposed to provide the best ones in place of expediency.

Everyone agrees the man had intercourse with the 12-year-old. He says she agreed to it. She says she struggled and said "no". Even if the prior probability of his case is .02 (1 in 50), he can still likely get off under the "reasonable doubt" standard. No amount of diligence is going to uncover decisive evidence.

So, you would prefer to risk destroying the life of an innocent man rather than give him the benefit of the doubt in the absence of evidence,and due to the unwillingness to do the work required to find that evidence, because of your sentimental bias towards the accuser if they so happen to be a girl? And due to your loathing of any man who would make the choice to have a romantic relationship with a girl because he triggered your emotional gag reflex by doing so and thus offended the values of the war-mongering, power-worshiping society you hold so dear and curry the approval of? And all the while knowing, and not caring, that such a measure will not only set a precedent for the complete dissolution of due process for everyone, but will also encourage the less scrupulous girls out there to freely engage in extortion, revenge, and the destruction of innocent people who happen to look at them the wrong way? This is not a concern for justice, Ethan; it's to make sure a demographic you dislike and a sub-demographic among them (those who make a decision disapprove of) are most likely to get hurt for daring to offend you and threaten the power structures you are loyal to.

I'll go for the democratic solution that treats everyone as equals over the draconian solution that is fueled by selective "justice" any day of the year. This certainly makes it clear that your purported opposition to power imbalances is not true; your concern is over who is on the favored side of a power imbalance, not the concept of the imbalance itself.

but I've never seen how anyone can seriously aspire to a stateless society without believing in the perfectibility of humanity. I don't know what else keeps the free riders, thieves, and others looking out for their own selfish interest from sabotaging the system.

A system that provides freedom from material want in exchange for a reasonable amount of work from everyone in a vocation that compliments their individual skill set would make the motivations for thievery pointless, and would produce no "free riders" because people naturally gravitate towards tasks that they have a natural aptitude for. Since you support a system that thrives on great imbalances of power and material deprivation in a post-Industrial world, and accepts such a system as eternal, you see no way around using an apparatus to impose order and punishment (or the threat of punishment) for the bad behavior the very system encourages and even makes mandatory for material success. In a better system based on cooperation rather than cutthroat competition, everyone's self-interest will be met by working towards the greater good, not towards ensuring they are one of the few winners in a system that routinely produces countless losers.