All Roads Lead To Regensburg

I had an honest intention not to bother with the story of the Australian Muslim cleric who preached recently that rape victims deserve what they get.

During the sermon al Hilali said: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden, or in the park, or in the backyard without cover, and the cats come to eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat?

“The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”

Ninme's got a good round-up if you missed the story, but as it's been covered elsewhere, I was going to leave it alone. Then while preparing dinner tonight our local talkie brought up once again the outrageous prosecutorial mishandling of the Duke Lacrosse Team non-rape case (charges brought when the DA hasn't even interrogated the accuser yet) and it struck me these two phenomena are linked. There's the backwards Mullah's approach: the woman's always at fault. And there's the enlightened Western feminist approach: the man's always at fault, all sex is rape, even if no sex occurred and the accusation is manifestly false. I'd prefer to be judged fairly, under the rule of law, myself. But to have law you must have reason, and so far only the Pope's squarely in favor of that.