Not Getting It

Well there was this post by Atrios linking to this story about Rick Santorum. Apparently Santorum, a conservative Catholic is now undertaking to blame the victims of sex-abuse scandals in the church. In the past he has used the most tortured logic to blame this sort of thing on anyone other than the priests that did it and the bishops that did nothing. For him though, this is a new low, implying that 12 year-olds were somehow consenting. Any church (not just the Roman Catholics) that gets into this kind of scandal needs to accept responsibility and clean house. I know that some will point out that other religious organisations have similar rates of sexual abuse. That doesn't excuse it for the church! The standard of "we're about the same as everyone else" does not cut it, and it especially does not cut it for the church.