A Rape in Utah

When a 13-year-old was raped, the GOP protected the rapist

One of the core beliefs of MAGA-world is that America's women — and, especially, America's children — must be protected from "rapists," "groomers" and "pedophiles."

That's especially true when they imagine that the raping is being done by "Mexicans," the grooming by Drag Queens and teachers, and the pedophilia by high-ranking Democrats like Hillary Clinton and celebrities like Oprah and Anderson Cooper.

When the rapists and pedophiles are white men in positions of power — politicians, cops, evangelical preachers, reality TV stars — Republicans are far more forgiving.

In January 2015, former Arkansas Governor (current US Ambassador to Israel) Mike Huckabee slammed the Obamas for allowing their daughters to listen to Beyonce’s 'mental poison.'

Four months later, when his friend Josh Duggar (one of the "19 Kids and Counting" on the TLC reality show) admitted to molesting five young girls, including two of his own sisters, Huckabee took a gentler tone, saying: "Josh's actions... (were) 'inexcusable,' but that doesn’t mean 'unforgivable.'"

But it turns out that forgiveness wasn't enough.

Seven years later, Josh Duggar was sentenced to 12 years in prison after being convicted for possessing what one investigator called the "worst of the worst" in terms of child porn.

Republicans have shown forgiveness — repeatedly — to reality TV star Donald Trump

In 2016, despite a caught-on-tape confession that revealed him to be a serial sexual predator, Trump was elected President.

In 2024, Trump was re-elected less than two years after a jury found that his 1996 attack on E. Jean Carroll at Bergdorf Goodman’s Manhattan store was, in the words of the judge, rape "as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.'"

In the years since Trump took over the Republican party, it has sunk deeper and deeper into the sewers of pedophilia and perversion.

The reality that Trump is, indeed, "The Epstein Client-in-Chief" has not caused "family values" Christians to abandon Trump en masse. Instead, Trump's VP, his chief-of-staff, his Attorney General, his FBI chief, his deputy AG/former personal laywer, and other senior officials are collaborating in a cover up of what looks like the biggest sex scandal in Presidential history.

Meanwhile, the Utah GOP just changed the law to protect an 18-year-old who raped a 13-year-old

In July, I wrote about a central contradiction at the heart of today's GOP — that the party is "Normalizing Child Rape" even as it pretends "others" are guilty of the kinds of crimes it now routinely tolerates.

Less than three weeks later, news broke that the GOP Senate President in Utah — J. Stuart Adams — got the law in his state changed after his 18-year-old relative was arrested for raping a 13-year-old.

As The Salt Lake Tribune reported, Adams allowed the defense lawyer in the case to rewrite the state's rape law after the 18-year-old perpetrator was charged with "two counts of child rape and two counts of child sodomy, all first-degree felonies, carrying the possibility of 25 years to life in prison and a requirement to register as a sex offender."

Even though the rewritten law was not retroactive, the same lawyer then pointed to the new statute to argue his client should be allowed to plea to reduced charges, receive no jail time beyond one week already served, with no requirement to register as a sex offender.

According to SL Trib:

The victim’s mother said she regrets not attending the sentencing and speaking against what she saw as lenient punishment, "but it was just one blow after another after another and I was just tapped out."

"I would like to have said: I have kids. I know this was a mistake, but there are consequences to actions," she said. "It’s changed both of you, but once you’re an adult, you take responsibility."

While the age of consent can vary from state to state — and Romeo and Juliet laws already existed in Utah to prevent consenting teens from being prosecuted for having sex — Utah law makes clear that anyone under the age of 14 cannot legally consent.

Also, as the victim's mother made clear, there's a big difference between 13 and 18. If we don't agree that adulthood responsibility begins at age 18, where does that leave us?

How long before the GOP abandons its "groomer" concerns to endorse the Dershowitz plan to abolish statutory rape laws and allow men of all ages to have sex with "consenting" teens?

Republicans protect perpetrators, ignore victims

Republican men who have historically been quick to engage in "victim shaming" are now willing to display tremendous concern for victims — but only in cases where migrants are alleged to have committed the crime.

It's a concern that quickly evaporates when the perpetrator is one of their own.

And, as Amanda Marcotte wrote in Salon in 2024, the MAGA movement's female stars have become equally hypocritical:

Republican women gleefully exploit sexual violence, crying giant crocodile tears over rape and other gendered violence, when in reality, they do everything they can to screw over actual victims.

In this climate, the only time Republicans offer victims of sexual violence empathy is when it suits them politically.

As the mother of the junior high school victim in the Utah case told SL Trib, she was not even informed the GOP was rushing through a change to the law after her 13-year-old was raped and sodomized:

“It was out of nowhere,” she said. “I felt like I was punched in the gut.”

She believes her child was an afterthought in both the legislative debate and the handling of the criminal case.

A lack of empathy for victims is a thread that runs through multiple Republican scandals in the Trump era — from the rape in Utah to Jim Jordan's role in the abuse at Ohio State to the trafficking and statutory rape at the heart of the Matt Gaetz case to the current Trump-Epstein scandal.

Another trend is emerging, too: In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decision to bestow immunity on a President for high crimes committed on live TV, elected Republicans are now willing to rewrite state law to protect a rapist in their midst.

What else will they do to protect their power? What other crimes will they excuse? How many more victims will they ignore?

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