Tel-Chai Nation

Similar questions could probably apply to their education curriculum as well, but anyway, here's something disturbing I found, about a case where a judge seems to have discriminated against a 17-year old rape victim who supposedly filed false rape charges. From The Oregonian on December 3, 2005:

BEAVERTON -- A municipal judge found a 19-year-old woman guilty Friday of filing a false police report after she said she was raped by three young men.

Even though the woman never said she lied or recanted her story, city prosecutors say they took the unusual step of filing charges against her because of the seriousness of her accusations.

The woman's attorney and advocates for rape victims say the prosecution sets a dangerous precedent and could discourage others from reporting sexual assaults.

"This will have a huge chilling effect on men and women across the board," said Erin Ellis, executive director of the Sexual Assault Resource Center in Washington County. "We're sliding backwards."

After a day-and-a-half trial, Municipal Judge Peter A. Ackerman on Friday convicted the woman of filing a false police report, a class-C misdemeanor. Ackerman explained his decision, saying there were many inconsistencies in the stories of the four, but that he found the young men to be more credible. He also said he relied on the testimony of a Beaverton police detective and the woman's friends who said she did not act traumatized in the days following the incident.

The woman's lawyer, Jeff Napoli, said he plans to appeal the case to Washington County Circuit Court, where a new trial would be held.

And I should hope that there will indeed be a retrial for this case. Because it does seem to me to be a case of pro-male bias. This blogger, Kevin Hayden of The American Street, knew the victim and attended the trial. On the prosecutor at the trial, most troublingly enough, he says that:

It was especially interesting that the prosecutor kept referring to the three men involved as ‘boys’, when they were fully grown men. The woman was 17.

The judge found inconsistencies in all of the stories, thus establishing reasonable doubt in every story. Yet he convicted the victim. ‘Boys’ will be ‘boys’.

I would assume from this that the prosecutor was acting as if the violators were also 17 years old, just like the girl was too at the time.

Shakespeare's Sister, who makes some additional points about the case, also notes something about Oregon itself:

As it is, only 10% of victims of sex crimes in Oregon file reports with police.

And when seeing how it's possible that the judge used the fact that the victim's mother was an alcoholic with problems with prescription drugs, and whose own boyfriend was in prison for an attack on his own daughter, as an excuse to villify her, one can only wonder if Oregon's justice system is corrupt.

Once Upon a Time also notes (the exact topic is no longer available; I had to get the paragraph via Outside the Beltway, and I can't even say that I agree with what OTB's got to say!):

I think the ultimate root is the prevailing view of women that still dominates and saturates every aspect of our culture: that, in essence, women are the root of all evil. [...] The central point is simple: with regard to evil in the world, in all its manifestations and no matter what the evidence might suggest about other causes, women are the ultimate source of all evil. All of it, bar none.

When you consider that throughout history and into our own time, men have held all the positions of power and that men, and only men, control all major events, one might well wonder why men are so fragile and insecure that they cannot bear even to contemplate that anything might be their own fault. But no matter what happens, it is never their fault. It's always someone else's. If no other man is available to take the blame, then pick a woman -- any woman. They're inherently evil, so they can fit any bill of particulars.

Foot before Foot notes that this could be a politicized case. And in the case of Oregon, it should be noted that there, the judges are appointed by the city councils, which could also be part of the problem: if the councils are corrupt, could that also have what to do with the outcome of the trial?

The Heretik's got a roundup of some more discussions of the case.

There's also the state assisted suicide law, which, if it was approved by the state's electorate, disturbs me as well. More from NA Heath:

Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act was originally enacted in 1994 and was the U.S.'s first law authorizing physician assisted suicide. It allows physicians to prescribe lethal doses of controlled substances to terminally ill residents for the sole purpose of terminating life. This law established certain procedures to help protect vulnerable patients and ensure that their decisions were voluntary and informed. Oregon voters reaffirmed their support for the Death with Dignity Act on November 4, 1997, by defeating a ballot measure that sought to repeal the law.

Shortly after Oregon passed this law, several Congressmen, including then Senator John Ashcroft, urged then Attorney General Janet Reno to declare that physician assisted suicide violated the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA). She declined to do so. On November 9, 2001 when John Ashcroft was appointed Attorney General, he reversed the position of his predecessor and issued the “Ashcroft Directive,” declaring that physician assisted suicide serves no "legitimate medical purpose" under DEA regulations. This directive made it unlawful for a physician to prescribe medications for assisted suicide and for a pharmacist to knowingly dispense medications for that purpose.

Be it far from me to judge, but Oregon doesn't sound like a place I'd like to visit if the people who live there are actually going to do something so creepy, by supporting a law like that. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure not every citizen there is a one-dimensional monster, and I did once know a guy from Portland via an old website I once read who was a very respectable Lutheran Protestant. However, I also once knew another Portlander on another website who was, and certainly turned out to be, a very obnoxious, racist moonbat. The Oregonian I speak of also suffered what seems to be a problem with a lot of moonbats, that he acted like a perfect genius, was very uppity, and even worst of all, in the case of the moonbat I speak of, he descended into bigotry denial in an argument we were once having. (I later discovered him on still another website showing support for a sexist book; he seemed very enthusiastic in whatever he said in relation to the discussion.)

And bringing up that Oregon moonbat there, I have to wonder if he was a product of the very same educational upbringing that seems to have bred some misogynists and suicide supporters in Oregon. Mind you, I'm not saying that such moonbats illustrate the entire state, but even so, when seeing the works of a few bloggers who were from Oregon, one whom I recall was supporting the lies being told by the left about where the government was going to drill for oil in Alaska, I'm left wondering if Oregon is plagued by the germ of moonbattery.

My point? It's that IMO, something is going to have to be done about the law and educational curriculum in Oregon before the state's citizens end up being damaged by corrupt lawmakers with no respect for women or human life either.

Labels: misogyny, United States