Republicans Hate Women

Many of you may have heard of this legal case that’s been making its way through the courts. A high school cheerleader in Texas (where else) was raped by a member of the basketball team. He  plead guilty to a reduced charge and was let back on the team. Later, the cheer squad wanted to cheer for him specifically by name in support of a free throw attempt. The rape victim refused to cheer for her rapist and stood silently with her arms crossed.  This being Texas, of course she was expelled from the sqad. Her parents sued and the case made its way to the supreme court which refused to hear it. So the net result – tacitly supported by the highest court in the land and explicitly supported by the 5th Circuit Court is:

• The rape victim is denied a high school activity because she won’t cheer her rapist
• The victim’s parents will be forced to pay the school district $45K in legal fees
• The rapist is allowed a high school activity because he copped a plea
• The official policy of the USA is that this is just peachy

The legal case as I understand it essentially pitted the girl’s assertion that her right to free speach was violated when she was forced to cheer her rapist against the district’s assertion that she agreed to be an agent of the cheer squad and therefore was required to participate in any cheer they came up with.

I’m not a lawyer and I have no idea what the legal precedents would dictate in this case. What I do know is there is a clear cut Moral and Seeker of Justice position here and that is to allow the victim to non-disruptively recuse herself from cheering her rapist.  But as we’ve seen on a number of recent occasions (particularly the Citizens United case), this Supreme Court doesn’t give a rats ass about legal precedent either. They’ve had not problem going way out of bounds to rule in favor of their big business cronies and they don’t seem to believe that they should ever recuse themselves no matter how involved in a case they are. Apparently they don’t think anyone else should be allowed to recuse themselves either.

This is one of those cases that is just obviously wrong. The victim got some additional victimization piled on and the people that should have been penalized weren’t.  I’m not counting the rapist here as he went through the courts and received a sentence that may or may not have been appropriate, but at least he was punished for his crime (disclaimer – since he plead down he is probably an alleged rapist not an official rapist). Here are the people that should be penalized in this case:

• The cheer leader coaches for trying to force the victim to cheer for her rapist. This is a small town in Texas. I’m sure they all knew what went down but didn’t care or wanted to punish the victim
• The other cheer leaders. This would have been a great opportunity to back up their teammate and all refuse to do this particular cheer.
• The school officials that pushed this case and kicked the victim off the squad. They are clearly a bunch of dickheads for their actions. I hope the citizens they represent drum them out of their jobs but I’m guessing that won’t happen.
• All the courts that ruled in favor of the district.  The 5th Circuit Court stated that the victims act “constituted substantial interference with the work of the school“. Give me a break. I’ve been to a lot of high school athletic events and I’ve seen a lot of cheerleaders that got out of sync with the rest of the squad and didn’t complete the cheer.  None of these games were cancelled, none of the athletes were denied scholarships due to subpar cheerleading, none of the school districts went insolvent due to lost ticket revenue, …
• The Supreme Court. Just another good reason why our representatives in congress should be trying to impeach a few of them. I know we don’t have the votes right now, but everytime a “regular” (i.e. not a millionaire or celebrity) US citizen is denied justice it damages our country.
• Rick Perry (R), Governor of Texas. Just because.

Well the house passed H.R. 3 which pretty much shows how Republicans view women.  Good summary story on Kos is here with a link to the National Women’s Law Center who say the bill will increase costs and taxes for millions of women and businesses.  The vote was 251 to 175.  16 Democrats were among those voting yes. Here’s the rollcall if you want to see what your representative did.

The Republicans in the house are still attempting insert language that will prohibit victims of “non-forcible” rape whatever that is from receiving any federal funcing if they seek abortions.  I wrote about this earlier. Its pretty typical behavior from the slimy weasels. They tried to push through a bill that most Americans disagree with. When there was push back on that, they dropped the offensive language, but they are trying to insert the equivalent of a presidential signing statement by crafting a committee report with similar wording.  If the law is ever challenged, then the courts typically allow examination of the committee report to clarify intent.  Here’s the story courtesy of Mother Jones.

The Department of Labor just announced a revised equal opportunity policy that includes a prohibition on discrimination due to pregnancy.  Here’s a good article.