When high-level politicians say that a child conceived out of rape is a blessing from God, you get Steubenville.

When senators and presidential runners place economic ideology before abused women, you get Steubenville.

When economic decisions are based on a religion with a long history of rape, you get Steubenville.

When radio hosts treat women as whores and are able to keep their job, you get Steubenville.

When mainstream reporters pity how convicted rapists got their lives ruined, you get more and more and more Steubenville. A week later, two high-school students from Conneticut got charged with raping a 13-year old, and the girl was submitted into further shame by bullies who called her a ‘whore’ and blamed her for ‘ruining lives’.

The ‘shining light on the hill’, the world’s self-proclaimed political, religious, and moral meter has a problem. Rape used to be the un-Christian, the uncivilized, behaviour that would fill airplanes with bombs to liberate the poor women and children from far away lands. Today it’s America’s favourite pastime.

Picture credit: Caitlin Doe/ CC BY 2.0