A Florida high school student was expelled and arrested after she continued to carry on a same-sex relationship with a minor student after she turned 18.
Kaitlyn Hunt was arrested in February at the behest of her 15-year-old girlfriend’s parents and charged with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery of a child 12 to 16 years old.
A judge ruled that Hunt could still go to her Sebastian, Fla., school if she did not have contact with the 15-year-old. Unhappy with that decision, the girlfriend’s parents also made an appeal to the school board, and Hunt was then expelled from Sebastian River High School just weeks before her graduation.
Her mother, Kelley Hunt Smith, claims State Attorney Brian Workman offered her daughter a plea deal that she has until Friday to accept or face trial. The plea deal includes “two years house arrest and one year probation.”
Her father, Steven R. Hunt, said the school disapproved of the relationship from the beginning. Hunt reportedly had good grades and participated in cheerleading, chorus and basketball. She was voted “most school spirited.” But when she began dating another girl from the basketball team, her coach dropped her citing that the relationship would cause “drama.”
Hunt’s family started a petition on Change.org asking people to “Stop the prosecution of 18 year old girl in a same-sex relationship” and calling it a “cruel waste of our taxes.” The petition, addressed to the Indian River County State Attorney’s Office, has more than 28,500 signatures so far.
“They are out to destroy my daughter, because they feel like she ‘made’ their daughter gay,” Smith said. “They see being gay as wrong and they blame my daughter. Of course, I see it 100 percent differently. I don’t see or label these girls as gay. They are teenagers in high school experimenting with their sexuality – with mutual consent. And even if their daughter is gay, who cares? She is still their daughter.”
Some other information: the 15 year old’s mother initially said that the relationship was fine as long as it was consensual. But the minute Kaitlyn turned 18, she was filing charges against her. If found guilty, she faces jail time or house arrest and will be labeled as sex offender for the rest of her life.
