<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><font face="Georgia, serif">Dear Visionaries:</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><font face="Georgia, serif"><br>
</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><font face="Georgia, serif">This is my radio commentary/column for the week. I knew that I could put to good use Wilson's Great Commission "penetrate, colonize, plant." </font><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%;text-indent:0.5in">The full version is attached.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><font face="Georgia, serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><font face="Georgia, serif">Akin is losing by a large margin in Missouri, and RealClearPolitics is now projecting a 52 majority in the Senate. Romney may take down the entire GOP ticket a notch everywhere.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><font face="Georgia, serif"><br></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><font face="Georgia, serif">Nick</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;text-indent:0.5in;line-height:115%"><font face="Georgia, serif"><b><br></b></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%">
<b><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">“Legitimate” Rape: Male Honor vs. Women’s
Rights</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">In the Book of Judges the Levite allows
his woman to be gang raped by a mob of Benjamites rather than be raped
himself. In retaliation the Israelites
nearly annihilate their brother tribe. The remaining 11 tribes are forbidden to
give their daughters in marriage, but they do encourage the Benjamites to
kidnap the daughters of Shiloh. The restoration of an Israelite tribe is based
on the rape of hundreds of young women.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="line-height:115%;text-indent:0.5in;font-family:Georgia,serif"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%">
<span style="line-height:115%;text-indent:0.5in;font-family:Georgia,serif">Lot also offered his daughters to the
Sodomites to protect his guests, so the main issue is not the abuse of women
but the honor of men. As Andrew Solomon states: “</span><span style="line-height:115%;text-indent:0.5in;font-family:Georgia,serif">Historically,
rape has been seen less as a violation of a woman than as a theft from a man to
whom that woman belonged, either her husband or her father, who suffered an
economic loss and an insult to his honor.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%">
<span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">In the Renaissance, wedding
chests were frequently decorated with images of the Sabine women being
ravished, and we must ask ourselves what message this offered to the bride and
groom. It certainly would warn the bride that the groom has, as local pastor Douglas
Wilson claims, “a right to penetrate,” and she has a duty to “receive, </span><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">surrender, and
accept.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">St. Augustine offered
a perverse moral lesson in the rape of Christian women when the Visigoths sacked
Rome in 410. Incredibly, the great Church father suggests that rape could save
women from the sin of pride. Some women
may have “</span><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">some lurking
infirmity which might have betrayed them into a proud and contemptuous bearing,
had they not been subjected to the humiliation that befell them in the taking
of the city.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Blaming rape
on the victim rather than the rapist goes back as far as Hammurabi, whose, as Andrew
Solomon reports, “describes rape victims as adulterers; English law of the
seventeenth century takes a similar position. In Puritan Massachusetts, any
woman pregnant through rape was prosecuted for fornication.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%">
<span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">The king’s right of access to all
females was certainly present in the glory days of David and Solomon, who
possessed 700 wives and 300 concubines. When David saw Bathsheba bathing, his
lust was quickly satisfied by royal command. David’s punishment was that his
God commanded that one of David’s wives have public sex with a man he knows.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">“Top male” access to women still
continues among some of our presidents (the Kennedys and Clinton) and some pious
preachers. All males used to have unconditional sexual license with their
wives, and marital rape is still not illegal in 140 countries. In 1975 South
Dakota was the first state give its women the rights of refusal, but North
Carolina lingered until 1993. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> Many
conservative Christians, such as local pastor Douglas Wilson, still insist that
the husband must be the lord of his household. Criminalizing marital rape
would, in Wilson’s words, undermine “the concept of authority and submission in
marriage.” Would Wilson ever command that a congregate who commits adultery must
follow God’s example and have his wife engage in public sex?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%"> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%">A 2005 survey showed that 34
percent of Britons—men and women together—believed that women, because of their
actions and/or dress, were responsible for their attacks.</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%"> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;line-height:115%">Recent studies show that 43 percent of
American college men believe that it is OK to coerce women to have sex.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><b><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><b><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span></b><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif"">In backing off
from his atrocious remarks about “legitimate” rape, Missouri Congressman Todd
Akin said that he meant to say “forcible” rape.
This phrase was in a bill co-sponsored by Reps. Paul Ryan and Todd Akin,
in which abortions are allowed only in cases of “forcible” rape. The clear implication is that some women who
claim to have been raped have somehow consented to the act. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> Ryan now claims that the phrase
“forcible rape” was “stock language,” and that he supported its deletion after
wide-spread objections. The FBI uses “forcible” rape to distinguish it from the
crime of statutory rape. This “stock language” simply does not work for
anti-choice legislators. This would mean that adult rape victims who were
really forced could get an abortion, but underage girls could not.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> In their attempts to control (even to penetrate with vaginal probes) women’s bodies, far too many American
politicians still stand as a threat to the human rights of women. Especially
precarious are those of low socio-economic status, where most of the rapists
and their victims are found.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif""> Mitt Romney’s strict
anti-abortion stance and plan to defund Planned Parenthood and other programs
for women will further erode the basics rights of half the American population.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%">Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:115%"> </p>