Franken's Anti-Rape Amendment Passes, No Thanks to Republicans

Any reasonable human being would agree that if a woman is gang raped by her co-workers, she should be able to seek some type of recourse.

For Jamie Leigh Jones, it wasn't that simple. Five years ago she was gang-raped by co-workers while working for Halliburton/KBR and stationed in Iraq. According to reports, she was then locked in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water and was warned that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she would be fired.

Understandably, she wanted to bring her attackers to justice, but the fine print in her employer contract stipulated that she couldn't sue. The contract requires that incidents related to her employment or personal injuries “arising in the workplace" be resolved through Haliburton's dispute resolution program.

Thankfully, the courts ruled that the incident was not related to her employment - as in her job duties - so she can take action against those who attacked her via the justice system.

Following the suit, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN)
proposed an anti-rape amendment that would deny defense contracts for companies that require their employees sign contracts preventing them from suing in cases like this. The amendment passed but received 30 nay votes - all from Republicans.

If you haven't seen this yet, Jon Stewart sums the situation up really well in his Daily Show segment, Rape Nuts.

Everyone should be asking themselves why any of our elected officials would not support a bill that protects victims of gang rape. Are these 30 republicans voting nay on behalf of their constiuents, some of whom may be rape victims themselves, or on behalf of big companies? Is this not a disgusting display of corruption? Has capitalism really become more important than civil rights?