Noli Irritare Leones

I believe in repentance. That’s bedrock. I believe in the possibility of redemption for everyone. At the same time, believing in everyone’s ability to turn his or her life around, whatever wrongs have been done, doesn’t oblige me to accept at face value every man’s “open and honest” statement about how very, very sorry he is, as he is collecting letters of support to win a light sentence with the judge. We’re allowed to be wise as serpents, as well as innocent as doves. So, now that Kyle Payne is back, after pleading guilty to assaulting and photographing an intoxicated female student (all while counselling rape victims on campus), to say how very, very sorry he is, for an act that he doesn’t identify with at all, but which he nevertheless committed, I’m going to say that, for all the reasons jfpbookworm lays out so well, no, this one doesn’t strike me as open, honest, or credible. I wish Kyle Payne a repentant and reformed life in the future. I even wish him a productive one – after all, whatever his sentence, he will get out of jail, in the not too distant future. But I’ll invoke the Rabbi’s blessing for the tsar, and wish him that reformed future far away from “research, activism, or advocacy related to pornography or sexual violence,” employment in student affairs, or anywhere else that he would again be employed in a position to abuse a woman’s trust so grievously as he’s abused this woman.

And, no, I don’t see any reason to ask the judge to be more lenient in his case than in the case of any other man who’s committed the same crime.

jfpbookworm has a long list of other people who’ve blogged about this; I’ll just link a couple:

The Curvature

Mirabile Dictu

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Feminism, News and Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.