Wonder if Berlusconi appointed any of these judges.

What would it take to get progressives and the great granddaughter of an evil dictator to agree about something?

How about a ruling in an Italian court that a forty something year old man molesting a fourteen year old girl is not as serious a crime if she is not a virgin?

The court ruled in favor of a man in his forties, identified only as Marco T., who forced his 14-year old stepdaughter to have oral sex with him after she refused intercourse.

The man, who has been sentenced to three years and four months in jail, lodged an appeal arguing that the fact that his stepdaughter had had sex with men before should have been taken into consideration during his trial as a mitigating factor.

The supreme court agreed...

"I think we have gone back 50 years," said Maria Gabriella Carnieri Moscatelli, head of the Telefono Rosa association that helps sexually abused women.

"It is inconceivable that such a serious crime that ruins the life of a woman, irrespective of her age, might be considered in a different light depending on whether she is a virgin," she said.

Female politicians from across the political spectrum also strongly condemned the court's decision.

"This is a shameful, devastating ruling," said Alessandra Mussolini, grand-daughter of wartime fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. "The real problem is that there are no women in the supreme court."

Luana Zanella of the Greens opposition party called the court's arguments "abominable".

First of all, abusing a fourteen year old is a crime. Period. And it should be taken seriously no matter who the fourteen year old is or whether she is sexually active or not.

On top of which, this man was her stepfather. It is his household and he is the authority figure. I would think that that betrayal of trust would be a much more damning factor than anything else you could think of.

My last post dealt with how delusional Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is. Apparently though, it does not end with him. One has to wonder what they are spiking their pasta with:

The (Italian) supreme court is no stranger to controversial judgments.

In recent years it has ruled that "an isolated and impulsive" pat on a woman's buttocks at work did not constitute sexual harassment, and returned a verdict that a woman could not have been raped because she was wearing skin-tight jeans.

I made over 250 posts on Deep Thought without ever having occasion to refer to Benito Mussolini. But now I've had to at least refer to him in two consecutive posts, both posts about men who seem to have a warped view about the virtues of Italian manhood. Sounds like I will have to scratch Rome off the list of places I hope I get to visit someday.