Republicans hoping to make it through the 2014 elections without repeating the mistakes of Todd “legitimate rape” Akin could be in for a tough ride, thanks to Virginia congressional hopeful Richard Black.
As Mother Jones reported Wednesday, Black opposed criminalizing spousal rape while he served in the Virginia state legislature. His reason? It would be impossible to prosecute a man for rape “when they’re living together, sleeping in the same bed, she’s in a nightie, and so forth,” Black said in 2011. He also argued that men should not have to live with the “emormous fear” of facing a false spousal rape accusation.
Black, who is mounting a primary challenge to moderate Republican Rep. Frank Wolf, would also be unlikely to help lawmakers working to address the military’s sexual assault epidemic. In 1996, Black called rape in the ranks “as predictable as human nature,” according to Mother Jones‘ report. Before starting his political career, Black was a military prosecutor.
In addition to his stance toward sex crimes, Black has referred to emergency contraception as “baby pesticide,” and he once used a public library computer to show violent rape pornography to a television reporter in an attempt to emphasize why libraries should block porn on their computers.
Virginia voters rejected socially conservative candidates who ran for statewide office in 2013, when Democrats won all the statewide elections for the first time in 24 years.
Meredith Clark
Meredith Clark is a freelance writer and editor. She was previously a senior news producer for "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj," a reporter with MSNBC.com, the digital politics and culture editor at Glamour and a senior news and politics editor at Refinery29. She has written for Vulture, Rolling Stone, Self, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast and Bustle.