Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Reason 7 - Updated!

Why I'm voting and walking and calling and writing for Obama/Warner/RhymesWithSeder. Part seven of a series:

Domestic Violence

My internship last year was with a local women's shelter. Perhaps you didn't know that Biden is a hero to the people who work with victims of domestic violence?

" Senator Biden wrote the ground-breaking Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in the 1990s that set the national agenda on criminalizing violence against women and holding batterers truly accountable. It encouraged states to set up coordinated community responses to domestic violence and rape; was the catalyst for passage of hundreds of state laws prohibiting family violence; and provided resources to set up shelters so battered women abused by husbands and boyfriends had a place to go. The law also established the national hotline that over 1.5 million abused women have called for help. By empowering women to make changes in their lives, and by training police and prosecutors to arrest and convict abusive husbands instead of telling them to take a walk around the block, domestic violence is down 50 percent and rape is down 60 percent nationwide.

Each time the Senator renewed the Act – in 2000 and 2005 – he pushed for new initiatives. In 2000, the Act was attached to ground-breaking laws on human trafficking – crimes where over 80% of the victims are women. In 2005, the Violence Against Women Act tackled issues like domestic violence in public housing and treating children witnesses of family violence." - from Biden's senate web page.

This is the man Obama has picked to be his VP, a man of principles, courage, and compassion. As opposed to McCain's VP choice, the former mayor of a town that, while she was in charge, billed victims of sexual assaults for rape kits. Yeah. Nice.

Oh! And the AP reports that the McCain camp claims that the REAL reason she fired Monegan was not because he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law! It was because Monegan was seeking federal funds to fight sexual assaults! (ht to Bitch PhD)

Health Care, Energy, Tax plan, Social Programs, Amtrak, Ethics, Domestic Violence. Seven down. More to come.

3 comments:

Antropóloga said...

I knew of Biden's work on preventing child abuse but not about domestic violence, too. I am so worried Obama-Biden will not win.

Madeleine said...

I didn't know that! Thank you.

Heather said...

Amen - Biden is a true champion in this arena!

That article about the rape kits just renders me speechless. This chick's a loaded cannon and heaven help us should she end up at the white house.