Last month, the War on Women reached a new level when every single Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against a reauthorization of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). VAWA has been reauthorized with broad bipartisan support twice since its original passage, but this year, Republicans objected to the inclusion of new provisions to protect LGBT people and immigrant women.
On her radio show last week, Janet Mefferd discussed the battle over VAWA reauthorization with Concerned Women for America’s Janice Crouse.
Crouse charged that VAWA – which grants funds to local communities to develop programs combatting domestic violence – mostly funds “reeducating programs for judges to try to train them in the principles of feminism and so-called ‘women’s rights.’”
Crouse and Mefferd were especially scornful of new provisions protecting immigrants and LGBT people and an eliminated provision making it easier to combat date rape on campuses, with Crouse warning that women would just abuse the system to get green cards and make false accusations of date rape.
Crouse: Quite frankly, much of the Violence Against Women funds reeducating programs for judges to try to train them in the principles of feminism and so-called ’women’s rights.’
Mefferd: Wow, that’s what we need, we need more indoctrination of judges, right?
Crouse: Right. [laughs]
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Mefferd: So they’ve expanded this to cover more subgroups, but why can’t it just, if you’re going to have a domestic violence piece of legislation, why can’t it just cover anyone who’s affected by domestic violence? Is this just another one where they’re trotting out their typical liberal ways and, you know, ‘We’ve got to emphasize non-discrimination against sexual orientation, etc. etc.’ Is that just kind of the agenda here again?
Crouse: Exactly right. Plus, you have a number of women from other countries who marry Americans to come to this country, and then they want out of the marriage. Well, VAWA provides a way for them to get out, a very easy way for them to get out.
One of the things that I found particularly troubling, and thank goodness the Republicans stood up against this, was the effort to change dating rape to not require clear and convincing evidence, and that’s a legal term, clear and convincing evidence, but instead to require preponderance of evidence, which is a much lower standard and is not clear and convincing. So a girl the next morning could just say, ‘Well, I really made a mistake,’ and accuse a guy of date rape, or have any kind of regrets and accuse a guy of date rape.
Mefferd: Well, isn’t that unconstitutional, to lower the standard there on crime?
Crouse: Well, I’m not a constitutional specialist, but in terms of legal ramifications, it’s disastrous.
