Chris Powell: Yet again, a much-delayed and unprovable assertion that Trump sexually assaulted a woman
E. Jean Carroll, the latest Trump accuser, in a 2006 photo
Connecticut's worsening backwardness under the political correctness that dominates the General Assembly was demonstrated the other week when another woman accused President Trump of sexually assaulting her many years ago.
The woman, Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll says the assault took place in the fall of 1995 or spring of 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman store dressing room in New York City. The president denies it, as he has denied the similar accusations of more than 15 other women, none of whom complained contemporaneously to the police. That has made the accusations impossible to prove, though of course they are easy to believe in light of Trump's infamous boast, recorded in 2005 and publicized during his campaign in 2016, that as a celebrity he could get away with assaulting women.
If some of those women had complained contemporaneously to the police and a conviction had resulted, the country might have been spared a lot of trouble.
But the General Assembly has just legitimized the nearly indefinite withholding of sexual-assault complaints, approving a bill to extend Connecticut's statute of limitations from five years to 20 years for charges of sexual assault against adults and eliminating the statute of limitations for charges of sexual assault against minors.
The rationale for the legislation is that complaining about sexual assault is hard, so people need time. But time destroys evidence and impairs justice, which is the rationale for statutes of limitations. Only prompt complaints can stop a predator before he victimizes more people and advances to a position of authority.
This political correctness does sexual assault victims no favors. Justice requires timely complaints. Governor Lamont should veto the bill and urge the General Assembly to uphold due process of law.
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Other politically correct nonsense in Connecticut is being challenged by a complaint to the U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights. The complaint targets the state law allowing males to compete as females in school athletic events.
The law maintains that there is no biological gender anymore, only "gender identity." As a result two high school boys who want to be girls are winning many girls track meets -- precisely because biological gender is real, with males having physical advantages.
The nonsense of Connecticut's law evokes the analogy used by Lincoln to chide people who for political reasons dearly wanted to believe the impossible. If you call a tail a leg, Lincoln asked, how many legs does a calf have? Still only four, Lincoln explained, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.
The U.S. Education Department should tell Connecticut that calling a boy a girl doesn't make him one. It just doubles the boy's athletic chances by cheating girls out of theirs. Nor is a boy a girl because many people, as in "The Emperor's New Clothes," are too intimidated by political correctness to acknowledge the obvious.
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.