Jesus fucking Christ

No no no, see that Onion Sports video about the noble basketball player who survived raping the girl? That was SATIRE! Life should not imitate satire.

*shudder*

There is always two sides! That said, 'That dumb skank had it comin'' doesn't really make for much of an argument. Sorry, BOYZ.

As is my usual assumption in these matters, I blame Reddit.

If you want to assert that the accused are innocent, putting up posters in the alleged victim's neighborhood is NOT the way to do it.

Well, bullies have parents. And clearly, they have learned their behaviour somewhere.

Find the people who put up these posters, strip them naked, and tie them to a post somewhere.

I'm sure they'll gain understanding after a sufficient interval.

Um, there's photo evidence. I'm sure she wanted to frame them so badly she acted as if she was being raped, and then killed herself to make them look like bad people.
/surcursm

So is the other side of the story that she was a willing participant in group sex, or that the sex never happened? Also, it sort of easy to say two side to every story now that she's dead.

In Canada and the US,. the lives of women have no meaning. Our countries hate women so passionately, that even when an innocent young girl, a child, is violently raped and then humiliated to the point of suicide, we defend the monsters who violated her.

How disgusting. Canada, you make me vomit today.

If this girl had been a boy, the whole town would be in the streets with pitchforks and torches. But because she was a girl, we see posters such as this. How can Canada claim the moral high ground, how can Canada claim to be a leader in human rights, when 51% of it's population is dehumanized and demeaned like this?

@10: Dude. There are 33 million of us. The majority are fucking appalled by what happened to her. Drop the broad brush and step back.

@10: "In Canada and the US,. the lives of women have no meaning."

And we have a late leader for the "Dumbest Slog Comment of the Day!" award.

11,

Then get off your asses and demand the RCMP arrest these monsters! Call your MP! Raise fucking hell at the RCMP office. If you have any respect for the lives of women at all, make sure your government acts on this issue.

Do something, goddamn it!

@10: I am a card-carrying feminist with a vagina, and after I spent two years in Central America being verbally assaulted every fucking block I walked outside - and sometimes physically - I wept with joy when I came back to the United States. I can walk to the grocery store after dark and know that the probability of attack is low. There, I was in a state of constant, exhausting vigilance.

Your moral outrage is lovely, but your hyperbole is ill-informed at best. Step the fuck back.

God forbid we should support the girls. And by that I mean, God says "support the boyz."

In other words, someone is putting up signs saying "Support Rape Culture! Rapists are People Too! Women? Not so much."

The maratimes are little like W Va only wetter and substitute cod for coal.

@19: Well, they used to have coal. And there's lobster and scallops too, not just cod. And there's marriage equality...

But yeah, you're not that far off.

Fucking sick. SICK.

Alright, so I don't have children, so I'd like feedback from the parents out there.

If your child is accused of something (anything, hopefully never as horrid as sexual assault) is the parenting instinct to shield your child absolutely?

@22: No. I mean, a lot of people do but it's not instinct, it's narcissism. Ignoring reality and working to keep your kid out of trouble will only create monsters, and good parents know this, but people who are more preoccupied with their reputations as parents or keeping their kid on the star track will throw out the facts whenever it suits them. I'm appalled by what I see other kids get away with, often thanks to intervention from their parents.

How is it the parents of these boys are so easily able to get themselves to believe that an ordinary 15 year old teenage girl would agree to be the fuck object to a group of boys?

@22 No, I think it varies from parent to parent, but an act like this is so horrifying, I can see it being hard to accept because a conviction puts the brakes on whatever hopes and dreams you had for them. The amount of parents' investment of toil and tears into their kids may be hard for non-parents to understand. The parents may even be sure that their child did rape, but be desperate to give them a chance to repent and put it behind them.

And, of course, there are even more people who do not want to accept that we have a rape culture, and would rather believe the world is crawling with the teenage sluts of their fantasies, who would readily agree to be abused by a group of boys. Why this is true is mysterious to me, but it is clearly true in a large number of communities.

@25: Well, it does happen. Teenage girls are sexual creatures, after all, and I've known a few in high school and college and after who cheerfully admitted being at the center of some group action and enjoying it. I doubt the world is 'crawling' with them, and it clearly wasn't what happened in this case. But it does happen.

Sorry, @24.

@ 22, when I see kids doing stuff like this, I usually assume that the parents were horrible kids themselves, and probably engaged in all kinds of humiliating pranks on other kids. They're the ones who let that shit happen as adults, saying "boys will be boys" or "everyone does it."

@23 is a very good parent.

@22: I think for some parents, at least, it isn't just about protecting their kids. It's about protecting themselves. To say "my son is a rapist" is also to say "I raised a rapist." That's a hard, hard thing for some people to swallow.