The NFL Replacement Refs

Two topics, but both are intimately related.

First, the NFL replacement referees.  For those of you who don't follow professional sports or professional football, the "real" referees are locked out.  A lockout means that the union was trying to negotiate new terms for a contract and the league said no and don't come to work.  Essentially.
This has led to the league hiring replacement refs.  Now, one thing to note about these replacements is that the "real" refs have connections with college football referees.  This essentially means that the "real" refs told the most qualified replacement referees that if they broke the lockout, they would not work again for colleges.  Which leaves lower division college referees, high school referees, and referees from various other leagues (such as the Lingerie Football League).
Another vital piece of information is that the coaches know that the referees don't know all the rules and that if they encourage their players to play football by any rules, the referees literally cannot call all the penalties.
These facts are the essential background of the story.
On Monday night, the Packers were playing the Seahawks.  The Packers were up by 5 with 8 seconds left in the game.  The Seahawks' player(Golden Tate) pushed a defensive player away and then leaped with a crowd of other Packer players in the endzone for the pass.  M.D. Jennings had possession of the ball(both hands around it and it against his body) while Tate had a hand on Jennings and a hand on the ball.  There were two officials, one called it an interception, the other called it a touchdown.  The play was reviewed and the touchdown went down as the play, which means that the Seahawks won the game.
This was most definitely not a touchdown.  However, this may be the kick that the league needs in order to get the real refs back.

Bit Heavier Topic

Today, I read an article about a teacher having a sexual relationship with a student.  I've included the link. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/04/13662214-erica-depalo-former-teacher-of-the-year-accused-of-having-sex-with-15-year-old-student?threadId=3557398&commentId=69667505#c69667505

Before I tell you the details or you read the article, I just want to discuss some of the attitudes of the comments following the article.  There seem to be a couple prevailing attitudes.  First, that sex is just sex, everyone should stop being Puritans.  Second, good for the student/what's the issue here, who cares who the student/teacher has sex with?  And third, that teacher should be killed.

Here are the details and this is where it becomes really problematic:  the teacher is 33 and a female.  The student is 15 and a male.  The teacher had taught the student previously, but the "sexual relationship" occurred over the summer.  Sexual relationship is from the article, not my own words.  This happened in New Jersey and the teacher was previously awarded a "Teacher of the Year" award.

Here are my issues with the article and the comments.  First, if the teacher were male and the student were female, the first two attitudes would not be present, or even if both were males.  The only prevailing attitude would be calls for this teacher's head and maybe a few comments about how the student asked for it.  However, because the student is male, most other males commenting on the site seem to think that this is a good situation for the child.  Additionally, the article referred to this as a "sexual relationship."  It is not.  It is a situation where a young man was repeatedly raped by an authority figure.  Jerry Sandusky, anyone?  In New Jersey, the age of consent is 16, which means that this boy could not consent to any sexual relationship, let alone one in which he holds none of the power.

What is wrong with our society that this rape is seen as anything other than rape?