Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) shot back Thursday at Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto, who in a June 17 op-ed had accused her of trying to “criminalize male sexuality” through her crusade against sexual assault in the military.
“Mr. Taranto says that I’m involved in a crusade to ‘criminalize male sexuality,'” McCaskill said in an article published in the Daily Beast. “For decades, from my time as a courtroom prosecutor and throughout my career in public service, I have indeed done my best to criminalize violence. And I have never subscribed to Mr. Taranto’s bizarre and deeply out of touch understanding of sexual assault as somehow being a two-way street between a victim and an assailant.
“Mr. Taranto’s arguments contribute to an environment that purposely places blame in all the wrong places, and has made the current culture and status quo an obstruction to sorely needed change,” she added. “My colleagues and I are fighting not to criminalize men, but to bring the cowards who commit sexual assault to justice.”
