NEW YORK
CT Post
In the halls of the New York State Assembly, there’s a scandal going on. In a case of the alleged sexual harassment of two female staffers by Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver authorized a secret settlement payment in excess of $100,000.
According Mr. Silver: the payment was made on the advice of counsel that it would be better to settle than to go to trial; the payment was kept secret in deference to the alleged victims’ request for confidential mediation; the decision to bypass the Assembly’s bipartisan ethics committee was made to protect the identity of the complainants.
According to Gloria Allred and Kevin Mintzer, lawyers representing Lopez’s complainants, Silver’s “truthiness” leaves room for debate. …
From 1950-2002, the Catholic Church alone paid out $572,507,094 in partial restitution to victims of its coverups. How much more in taxes and tithes will it take?
What isn’t being gotten in “it must not get out that it does happen here” school of denial is that Vito Lopez is an old-school predator: he targets women.
Ask yourself: when have you heard of girls being molested, raped, by pedophile priests? Indeed, the recent spate of high-profile cases have all headlined the sexual abuse of boys. In a society as open to homophobic suggestion as ours, by ignoring victimized girls, we’ve been encouraged to link the pedophilia of priests to homosexuality.
“Of course it happens to girls. I’m one of them,” says Barbara Blaine, founder of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). Blaine was 12 when a priest raped her.
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