After losing all major statewide races to Democrats for the first time in 24 years, Republicans in Virginia are pushing to replace a moderate GOP congressman with a candidate so conservative that he doesn’t even believe that spousal rape should be a crime.
On Wednesday, Mother Jones pointed out that state Sen. Richard H. “Dick” Black, who is running to take over retiring Rep. Frank Wolf’s seat, had fought against making spousal rape a crime because the woman was “sleeping in the same bed, she’s in a nightie.”
Democrat Shawn Mitchell had uncovered the 2002 video of Black talking about spousal rape for an attack ad during the 2011 campaign for Virginia state Senate.
I do not know how you could validly get a conviction of a husband-wife rape, when they’re living together, sleeping in the same bed, she’s in a nightie and so forth,” Black says. “There’s not injuries, there’s no separation or anything.”
The ad notes that between 2002 and 2010, there were 800 reported incidents of spousal rape in Virginia.
In 2001, Black asserted that emergency contraception was “baby pesticide” and he recently compared the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion to the Holocaust.
“When I hear discussions about this, I hear very mild comments about choice and reproductive rights and things of this sort,” Black said in a speech on the 2013 anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling. “But I recall back to the days of Nazi Germany, there was a place called Auschwitz. “
“You know it’s quite easy — and from where we look back on history, we say, ‘Why didn’t the Germans do something? Why didn’t they rise up? Why didn’t they take action?’” he continued. “But they were helpless before their government just as we are helpless before our government.”
January 26, 2014 6:54 AM
