Reply #210: I think everyone is misreading a misleading article and then being [View All]

quickly led to outrage.

Prior to the law change, alcohol was specifically exempted from the definition of an intoxicating substance in the state's 2nd degree rape statute.

Now that the law has been changed, alcohol is included in the definition of an intoxicating substance in the state's 2nd degree rape statute. But all the other standards of 2nd degree rape remaine the same: the victim has to be intoxicated, has to be so intoxicated as to be unable to appraise the suspect's actions, and the suspect has to be aware of the victim's condition. None of those standards has changed. The article does make it possible to interpret this as a "new" law which means intoxication can negate consent, but that doesn't make it so. :)

And being drunk was never an acceptable excuse--before or after the wording change--for this or any other crime. The DA's comment in the article--that people are still responsible for crimes they commit while intoxicated--was put in the article, not with reference to the specifics of this law change, but rather with reference to his paraphrased comments about the dangers of alcohol.

Then what the OP did is put the DA's comments about how victims (presumed female, though the article doesn't really say that) may get so drunk as to be unable to give consent right next to the DA's comments about how "alcohol is not an excuse" for perpetrators (presumed male, though again the article doesn't really say that).

He quoted these paragraphs, one after another, with no ellipses to indicate that they were addressing different parts of the article. This doesn't strike me as an honest presentation of the article, and gave the impression that the law specifically indicated that men are responsible for what they do while drunk but women aren't.