Given the frequency in which opponents of organized religion point to the Spanish Inquisition as evidence of the dangers presented by those of us who believe in such out-dated things as God, I took the opportunity to brush up on the topic over break. Henry Kamen's book, titled The Spanish Inquisition, aided me in my task.
Without condescending to offer apologetics, Kamen carefully traces the Inquisition from its almost innocuous beginnings through its growth into eventual obscurity, irrelevance, and, finally, out of existence. Though “heretics” were burned, such “relaxations” were extremely rare; the punishments of similar institutions in other realms were actually more severe than Spain's were. In brief, the Spanish Inquisition was, given the history of the human race, a relatively banal example of the fallen nature of man.
But the reason one studies history is not simply to analyze it, but to learn from it so as to avoid playing the victim in its repetition. In the closing paragraph of his book, Kamen writes: “Even today... other nations have had and continue to have their Inquisitions: the human condition is subject to frailties that are not limited to any one people of faith and that regularly reverse the gains made in previous generations by 'civilization' and 'progress'.” With this in mind, let's examine another of Kamen's statements in order to see what I will argue is an inquisitorial parallel in modern day America.
“[T]he system of secrecy was an open invitation to perjury and malicious testimony. This objection might not have been valid but for the fact that all accusations were taken seriously, and even if a man were later exonerated, the evil brought on him by a slight and secret accusation was immense.”
The Spanish Inquisition punished many innocent persons. One reason for this was the way in which the institution dealt with secret testimony. Those who were not burnt, a sizable majority, were nonetheless defamed. A common punishment required penitents to wear a sanbenito, a visible reminder of their guilt, an anachronistic scarlet letter. Tragically, even those spared and deemed innocent would fall under suspicion.
By subtle revision, Kamen's statement could be used to show what is wrong with the way we in this country deal with rape. Consider the case of the Duke lacrosse players. It quickly became obvious, to anyone with brains, that the woman who claimed rape was lying. Not only did she change her story with astounding frequency; not only did she have sex with someone else immediately after the alleged rape, something a traumatized victim would be reluctant to do; not only did the DNA tests exonerate the men; not only does she did she have a history of lying about rape; she also failed to pick out any Duke lacrosse players from a police line-up until the DA packed the lineup with all lacrosse players, ensuring that she picked the “right” men. Her case is beyond flimsy.
And yet, in incidents of rape, "all accusations [are] taken seriously", and "even if [three men are] later exonerated the evil brought on [them]... [is] immense." Because rape is rightfully thought to be horrific, rape charges are taken seriously, irrespective of their foundation in fact. To be sure, the privileged white-boys versus poor-black-woman angle was too delicious for media whores to ignore, but in an age of intellectual honesty, this case would never have seen the light of day.
No one would ever rationally defend rape. But cases of she-made-up-the-existence-of-a-non-rape deserve no such defense. Women may cry rape just as the proverbial boy cried wolf. Undue attention to ridiculous rape charges undermine genuine cases of rape and destroy the reputations—and more—of the men who are ignominiously slandered. They merely serve the self-interests of lying wenches, soulless DAs priming for re-election, and media mongrels starved for ratings-attention.
It's high time the way in which we handle rape testimony goes the way of the Spanish Inquisition.
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