Finally, Virginia Dems, whose No. 2 is an accused rapist, have taken the lead on the ERA.
Both chambers of the Virginia state legislature passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) on Wednesday, becoming the 38th state to pass the resolution.
The amendment’s passage in Virginia crosses the threshold necessary for it to be included in the U.S. Constitution and sets the stage for all 38 states to call for a historic constitutional convention.
“As we enter this new, more inclusive, diverse, and accountable government that mirrors the values of today’s Virginians, it is important that our actions reflect those ideals,” said state House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D). “After nearly 100 years of working to put equality into the Constitution, a document that lays out our nation’s most fundamental rights and laws, we are taking the historic step to make ratification a reality. Finally, women will be represented in the Constitution.”
Because women currently aren’t? Also, in other news, this guy is the Lt. Governor of Virginia.
Watson said she met Fairfax during her freshman year at Duke University and that he was a friend whom she “completely trusted.” One night in 2000, he invited her to his room to celebrate as he neared graduation and Watson said she thought nothing of it because she had been alone with him on numerous occasions.
A tearful Watson recalled how he suddenly locked the door, turned off the lights and “did things you shouldn’t do to someone without their permission.”
She said she tried to leave but he held her down and “forcibly assaulted and raped me.”
“If you have to hold someone down, it’s not consensual,” Watson said when asked about Fairfax’s denial. She said she told her two closest friends that Fairfax had raped her.
Tyson said she met Fairfax, with whom she had a mutual friend, at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston and that they hit it off. But she said it “wasn’t flirtatious at all” and she considered him “harmless.”
At one point, she accompanied him to his hotel room, where he told her he needed to grab some paperwork, Tyson said. When they were alone, he began to kiss Tyson, which she said was “completely consensual.”
But Tyson said he then led her to the bed and proceeded to force her to perform oral sex.
“I was compeletely caught off guard,” she said. Tyson, who then worked at a rape crisis center, said she had told Fairfax that she had been sexually assaulted by a family member in the past. She said she believed he used that information to take advantage of her.
Tyson said she did not tell anyone about the incident with Fairfax because she was “ashamed and humiliated.”
Fairfax is still in office because most black Democrats in Virginia backed him.
And what of Eileen Filler-Corn who is touting the greatest feminist leap of the ERA?
Two women who have accused Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of rape lost their bid Tuesday for a public hearing to tell their stories to the state legislature.
Virginia House Speaker Kirk Cox announced that Democratic lawmakers blocked proposals for a bipartisan hearing the women had demanded.
Mr. Cox said House Republicans offered to work with Democrats to organize a bipartisan hearing but were rebuffed by House Democratic leader Eileen Filler-Corn.
“We do not believe that the House of Delegates, or any selection of legislators, is the appropriate body to hear these serious allegations,” Ms. Filler-Corn wrote in a letter to Delegate Rob Bell, chairman of the House Courts Committee, which would conduct the hearing.
Eileen Filler-Corn could have actually held an alleged rapist in her own party accountable, or passed the ERA. She took the cynical road.
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