In Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is stated "Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense." A private hearing allowed in which the the accused is not present and hearsay is admissible as evidence nullifies the presumption of innocence, as do lack of evidentiary due process and lack of a jury of one's peers.

I don't know of any legal systems where there is an actual de jure presumption of guilt, but rather there is usually a de facto presumption of guilt due to procedural barriers to establishing innocence, such as in the situation I described above.

More stereotypes. I guess a family with two dads is bad, then, or, er, one with any dad.

Pretty pathetic and bigoted.

Sounds like some of you bitches are enjoying your man-bashing, as well.

Keep playing to the stereotype!

Half of Broadsheet's content is feminist screed against inappropriate portrayal of women in the media. Why is it so hard to expect feminists to live by the same standard they wish others would apply to them?

This type of hypocrisy is all too common in American feminism.

Yawn.

It sickens me to see the way the Catholic Church has turned a blind eye to all of the abuse and subsequent coverup by it's priests, bishops, etc.

Although baptised Catholic, I will not set foot in a Catholic Church again, and have explained to my children that the Church does not treat children well, and that that is why I am against it.

Why is taking resources away from male athletes being celebrated as a good thing? Two wrongs do not make a right, and the tenor of the congratulatory posts here speaks volumes about why feminism is seen as a negative among many young women today.

If a 10-year-old boy were molested by an adult woman, do you think there would be equivalent outrage? Unfortunately, that type of crime seems more and more common in the UK and in the US, yet sentences for female child molesters seem minimal given the traumatic effect that sexual assault has on children.

DonaQuixote alludes to only half of the issue. The US and EU have turned into cultures where female sexuality is implicitly regarded as benign, despite the obvious harm women do to children when they sexually assault them. Curiously, this issue seems to elude those who would point a finger at men and men's attitudes as being determinants in sexual assaults perpetrated by males.

That silence on the part of feminists is nothing new. The implicit assumption is that unless a crime is perpetrated by a male, it is not noteworthy. And where child victims of female sexual assault, male and female are concerned, there is only deafening silence.

Thank you for your post, Allie. I think it is the appropriate response to a sickening decision by this judge. As adults, we should be concerned about adults who prey on any children in our community, regardless of the children's sex. To relegate a boy's pain to the background while focusing on molestation of a girl is to devalue and denigrate a boy's pain, and serves to place a "higher price" on a female child over that of a male child.

In the real world, this usually results in resources, research and activity to remedy the girls' situations while ignoring the plight of male victims. We have already seem how discriminatory this is in the feminist treatment of domestic violence, which, across the country denies state monies to programs to help male victims, while pouring resources into programs that treat only female victims of domestic violence.

For information on abuse of male children and the devastating effects it can have, see the publications linked to at this link:

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/ncfv-cnivf/familyviolence/maleabus_e.html

"Have you ever been sexually harassed in the office?"

"It’s only sexual harassment if your boss is ugly. [Laughs]"

This speaks volumes...

They could be sold, complete with three outfits and accessories, at high-end boutiques in Brentwood and Pacific Heights.

We'd have to screen them first, though... From some of the interviewees, some of those single girls might be looking for a Barbie of their own.

...just being sarcastic.

My balls are still here, not to worry.

You sound like Norah Vincent in male drag talking about her female dates in Self Made Man.

From her interview in the Manchester Guardian last March:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1733547,00.html

"For these women, men as a subspecies - not the particular men with whom they had been involved - were to blame for the wreck of a relationship and the psychic damage it had done them. It's hardly surprising, then, that in this atmosphere, as a single man dating women, I often felt attacked, judged, on the defensive.

Many of my dates - even the more passive ones - did most of the talking. I listened to them talk literally for hours about the most minute, mind-numbing details of their personal lives; men they were still in love with, men they had divorced, roommates and co-workers they hated, childhoods they were loath to remember yet somehow found the energy to recount ad nauseam. Listening to them was like undergoing a slow frontal lobotomy."