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DUPLIN COUNTY, N.C. (WITN) - An Eastern Carolina man is behind bars on statutory rape charges after a missing girl from South Carolina was found with him.

The Duplin County Sheriff’s Office says they were called to the Potters Hill area on Tuesday after the 14-year-old girl was found.

Deputies say she was found with 20-year-old Kenneth Turner, who had ties to that address.

Turner was arrested after he admitted to sexual activity between him and the girl, according to deputies. He was taken back to the sheriff’s office while the girl was taken to DSS until she was picked up by a parent.

Deputies say Turner agreed to an interview after waiving his rights and further admitted to sexual activity between the two.

Turner was charged with statutory sexual offense with a person 13, 14, or 15 years old and greater than 4 but less than 6 years older than the victim, statutory rape with a person 13, 14, or 15 years old and greater than 4 but less than 6 years older than the victim, crime against nature, and 2 counts of indecent liberties with a child.

The man is being held without bond.

Deputies say Turner agreed to an interview after waiving his rights and further admitted to sexual activity between the two.

As is well known, in our Judeo-Christian culture the greatest sexual offenses have always been homosexual intercourse and sexual contact with animals. Although these behaviors are quite harmless in themselves, they were, at some early time in Jewish history, associated with the worship of strange gods. Therefore they came to be seen as "abominations," i.e., signs of idolatry. Offenders were punished by death.

The Middle Ages believed that these same sexual behaviors had prompted God to destroy the biblical city of Sodom and therefore referred to them as "sodomy" or "crimes against nature" (i.e. crimes against God's natural order). Anyone who committed these crimes showed disbelief and was automatically considered a heretic. Conversely, heretics were usually also accused of sodomy as a matter of course.

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Today [in 1981], the great majority of states in the U.S. still retain their sexual heresy laws, although in some states religious terms like "sodomy", "buggery", and "crime against nature" are now avoided. Other states, however, have seen no need to modernize the language of their statutes. Thus, "sodomy" and "crime against nature" continue to be used, sometimes interchangeably, sometimes side by side. Indeed, in a few states these words have, in the meantime, acquired an ever broader meaning and now cover not only oral and anal intercourse between homosexual or heterosexual partners and sexual contact with animals, but also certain rare and bizarre sexual practices, such as sexual contact with dead bodies (necrophilia) [And of course, pedophilia].

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by definition, a "crime against nature" is the classic victimless crime. After all, the term itself implies that not any human being, but nature itself is the victim. However, as we have seen, the "nature" which the law endeavors to protect here is not the nature of the natural sciences, but rather an archaic concept of "God's natural order". Modern scientific findings stand in sharp contrast to the philosophy expressed in these laws.