The Knuckle Dragging Judge

Normally, I find most judges are fairly well reasoned in their rulings, even if I disagree with them. Then there's Justice Dewar's comments in a recent sexual assault case where he blamed the victim:

Queen's Bench Justice Robert Dewar called Rhodes a "clumsy Don Juan" who may have misunderstood what the victim wanted when he forced intercourse along a darkened highway outside Thompson, Man., in 2006.

Rhodes and a friend met the 26-year-old woman and her girlfriend earlier that night outside of a bar under what the judge called "inviting circumstances." Dewar specifically noted the women were wearing tube tops with no bra, high heels and plenty of makeup.

I can't believe the judge was daft enough to make this ruling. Once again, we find ourselves being dragged back to the stone ages by people who seem to think that men can't possibly manage their sexual responses if the woman is "dressed provocatively" (whatever the hell that means, given the plethora of sexual turn-ons out there).

However, others have already pointed out the outrageous nature of the judge's comments, and the remarks (and presumably the ruling itself) are under review.

However, there's another dimension to this whole smelly mess that I'd like to bring to your attention.

Justice Dewar is one of Harper's patronage appointees: for donating to CPoC in 2008.

Hmmm...so, let's see if I've got this straight:

A judge who was appointed to the bench by Stephen Harper's government just made a ruling that revived the "blame the victim" defense for rapists (a defense which has been thrown out of court more times than I can count in the last thirty years).

I'd say this is pretty good evidence that the HarperCon$ would dearly love to drag Canada further back into the stone age. After their blatant attack on women and minority issues in 2006, one might just imagine that there's more going on than we are seeing (and the Bev Oda affair is just one more example of this government's inherent dishonesty with the public)