Image by Getty Images via @daylife
This bothers me, greatly, for a variety of reasons:
The 20-year-old single mother wrote on the night she conceived, “I didn’t know that girl flavored wine coolers were just as likely to get you drunk as the hard stuff” while she was on a camping trip with then boyfriend Levi Johnston.
Before the incident, she vowed to wait until marriage but with no memories of what happened, she got pregnant regardless of being on birth control pills to treat cramps. (here)
There are states with laws which prohibit such things. Think ‘date rape’ which may be caused because of drugs or other substances which are used to intoxicate one person while the other person remains in charge. I saw this, this morning, and I guess others have noticed it as well:
She doesn’t use the word “rape” anywhere in her book, but what she describes seems to be just that.
She writes that she felt her virginity had been “stolen” and that she “tried not to vomit” when she found out what happened.
Palin describes being devastated as she confronted Johnston: “ ‘You knew I didn’t want to have sex until I was married!’ I whispered. ‘How could you?’ ” She also writes that Johnston apologized.
If Palin’s story is accurate, then what she appears to be describing is a nonconsensual — and likely illegal — assault. She doesn’t say whether she was unconscious, too incapacitated to give consent or just unable to remember what happened the next morning. But, by the account she gives, what took place in the woods near Wasilla that night sounds a lot like what Alaska rape law defines as sexual assault in the second degree, when the “offender engages in sexual penetration with a person who the offender knows is . . . incapacitated or unaware that a sexual act is being committed.”
Erin Patterson, lead advocatefor Alaska’s organization Standing Together Against Rape (STAR), says cases similar to what Palin describes have been brought under that law. (Though without witnesses or confessions, like most rape cases, this one would be difficult to prove.)
I’m not sure how a ‘momma grizzley’ should act, but this father would have done some very ugly, unChristian-like things (unless you count parts of the Old Testament, and not that part in Deuteronomy about the rapist marrying her attacker) to the boy.
Of course, there are dissenters too.
It bothers me because stuff like this actually goes on a lot and women are told a variety of things, you know, like she deserved it.
Does this bother you?
The official White House holiday card makes no mention of the word ‘Christmas’ and instead focused on Bo the First Dog based on the wishes of the First Family.
