Tag: rape

Court Rules It’s Not Rape If Woman Gets Voluntarily Drunk Before Sex Assault Happens

In one of the most ridiculous, yet atrocious decisions by a court we’ve ever seen, the Minnesota Supreme Court threw out a rape conviction this month because the woman who was raped had voluntarily consumed alcohol prior to being raped. This case paves the way for legal rape so long as a woman voluntarily consumes alcohol or drugs with her rapist before the assault occurs.

The court’s unanimous 6-0 decision is plain and simple —  “a person can’t be found guilty of sexually assaulting someone, who is mentally incapacitated due to intoxication, if that person became intoxicated by voluntarily ingesting drugs or alcohol.”

Read that again if you need to, it is true.

The court’s decision stems from the case of Francois Monulu Khalil. Khalil was convicted of rape and sentenced to prison in 2019 but challenged his case all the way to the state’s highest court.

According to the details of the case, Khalil met his victim in 2017 when she was just 20. The two went on a date and the bouncer denied her entry into the bar because he deemed her too intoxicated. Khalil and another man then invited her back to “a party” that turned out to be non-existent.

The victim testified that she blacked out and woke up on the couch to find Khalil raping her. She told him to stop but Khalil refused, telling her, “But you’re so hot and you turn me on.”

Khalil has been in jail since 2019, but thanks to a highly controversial state law and the court’s ridiculous decision, he could soon be a free man.

The court overturned Khalil’s conviction because state law dictates that a person cannot be considered “mentally incapacitated” and incapable of consenting to sex if they are intoxicated on which were substances “administered to that person without the person’s agreement.” 

This law is not just in Minnesota either. According to The Washington Post, a majority of US states – 40 states, as of 2016 – have similar laws which treat intoxication as a barrier to consent only if victims became drunk against their will.

“Victims who are intoxicated to the degree that they are unable to give consent are entitled to justice. Minnesotans who experience unthinkable trauma deserve to see the Legislature take action on this immediately,” Democratic state representative Kelly Moller said, according to USA Today.

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Biden AG Nominee Merrick Garland Wrote in 70s That Song About ‘Military Rape’ Was ‘Hilarious’

President Joe Biden’s attorney general nominee Merrick Garland as a college student at Harvard University wrote in a review of a musical that a song about rape was one of the play’s “hilarious group numbers.”

In a Harvard Crimson article published January 22, 1976, he wrote in a critique of the play (emphasis added):

A combination of factors, however, keep the vocal problems from becoming disastrous. Most important are the Jones-Schmidt songs themselves, simple and engaging melodies with a few tender ballads like “Try to Remember” and some hilarious group numbers like “it Depends on what You Pay,” which provides a shopping list of rapes for sale (e.g. “the military rape–it’s done with drums and a great brass band.”)

The play was “The Fantasticks,” performed by an all-freshmen cast. It is about a nearly 20-year-old college student and a 16-year-old girl, who are young lovers.

The article was submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 26, 2020, as part of a questionnaire Garland filled out for consideration by the committee next week. Question 12 asks the nominee to list published writings — books, articles, reports, letters to the editor, etc. — and public statements.

The song about rape has come under public scrutiny in the past for its lyrics, which include:

We’ve the obvious open schoolboy rape,
With little mandolins and perhaps a cape.
The rape by coach; it’s little in request.
The rape by day, but the rape by night is best.

Just try to see it.
And you will soon agree, señors,
Why
Invite regret,
When you can get the sort of rape
You’ll never ever forget.

You can get the rape emphatic.
You can get the rape polite.
You can get the rape with Indians:
A very charming sight.
You can get the rape on horseback;
They’ll all say it’s new and gay.
So you see the sort of rape
Depends on what you pay.
It depends on what you
Pay.

The song’s lyricist, Tom Jones, made changes to the song in 2006 when the play was revived in 2006.

“For years I didn’t think and then gradually it began to seep into my consciousness. My consciousness was raised. I really began to think, you know, rape isn’t funny,” Jones told NPR in 2006. The word “rape” was later changed to “abduction.”

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