ThinkProgress: A University of Arizona student sparked outrage on Tuesday for preaching against women while holding a sign proclaiming, “You deserve rape.”The most obvious point to strike me was that, by Saxton’s own reasoning, he’s just begging for a beating. After all, people aren’t responsible for their own actions, because we’re just mindless Pavlovian meat machines that can only react to things we see. If someone were to read his sign and decide he dearly needed a few whacks in the mouth, you could hardly blame them. After all, Saxton was right out there in the open, being an insufferable asshole with an offensive sign… really, what did he expect to happen?
Dean Saxton, a junior, is notorious for giving inflammatory sermons in the middle of campus. This time, he argued that women are responsible for their rapes because of the way they dress and act. Saxton’s stunt may have been planned in response to the “Take Back the Night” protest against sexual violence scheduled Tuesday night.
Saxton cut right to the chase, bluntly stating that girls who dress like “a whore” have it coming:
Saxton, a junior studying classics and religious studies, said his sermon was meant to convey that “if you dress like a whore, act like a whore, you’re probably going to get raped.”
“I think that girls that dress and act like it,” Saxton said, “they should realize that they do have partial responsibility, because I believe that they’re pretty much asking for it.”
And of course, the fact that he left that day without feeling the sole of a shoe against his face completely disproves his little theory.
The second to strike me was that no one will accuse all Christians of agreeing with Saxton. But, imagine what the rightwing blogs would do with a pro-rape sign held by a Muslim student.
