Parker: ‘Rape supporter’ ploy paints Republicans as bad guys

By Kathleen Parker

Picking one's battles has never been trickier, especially if you're a member of the benighted Republican Party.

So the question is this: Do you support rape?

And no one (except a rapist) does, right?

Yet, 30 Republican senators have been getting phone calls lately from people asking, “Why do you support rape?”

These callers most likely are familiar with the fake Web site

RepublicansForRape.org, which recounts the recent skirmish over Sen. Al Franken's “anti-rape” amendment to the defense appropriations bill.

For something so

unfunny, the subject has become an exercise in the absurd.

The amendment, which passed Oct. 6 by a 68 to 30 vote, was intended to prevent the Pentagon from contracting with companies that require employees to resolve disputes over sexual assault and discrimination through arbitration rather than through the courts.

The impetus behind the amendment was the 2005 horror story of Jamie Leigh Jones, then a 20-year-old employee of Halliburton/KBR in Iraq, who alleged that she was drugged, gang-raped and held captive for 24 hours in a shipping container without food or water. When Jones sought legal recourse, the defense contractor argued that, under its employment contract, she had to pursue her complaint through arbitration rather than the courts.

No one hearing details of the alleged assault wants to be on the side of those who attacked her - or the company that refused to help her. If you're a remotely savvy politician, that's not a battle you want to join. One might assume, therefore, that there must be some reasonable explanation for 30 Republican senators taking a position that would invite vilification. It's true that Halliburton donates seven times more campaign money to Republicans than to Democrats, according to http://campaignmoney.com Politically, this couldn't be worse timing for Republicans, who can't seem to shake their white-male-patriarchal-oppressor image.

The reason some Republicans objected is that the amendment was overbroad and might not be enforceable. The latter possibility was raised by the Defense Department in a letter to senators, saying that the Pentagon or its contractors “may not be in a position to know about such things. Enforcement would be problematic.”

It would be easy to infer a conspiracy of denial, if not for the fact that the White House agrees and what followed in the Defense Department letter:

“It may be more effective to seek a statutory prohibition of all such arrangements in any business transaction entered into within the jurisdiction of the United States, if these arrangements are deemed to pose an unacceptable method of recourse.”

Apparently, the “Why do you support rape?” crowd overlooked that detail. It's far more entertaining to insist that Republicans, instead of objecting to a potentially bad law, don't mind if women get gang-raped.

The real goal, obviously, should be to ensure that no one is denied access to justice and that arbitration agreements are non-binding in criminal acts. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled last month in Jones' favor, agreeing that the alleged gang rape wasn't related to her employment and that she, therefore, wasn't bound by the company's arbitration agreement.

Jones' painful ordeal is far from over, but at least now she can have her day in court. Though it appears there are plenty of bad guys in this story - may they get their due - the 30 Republican senators have been unfairly smeared for doing the harder thing, maybe even for the right reasons.

n Contact the writer:

kathleenparker@washpost.com