While partisanship can be expected at almost every turn in Washington (and every other capital in this country) these days, one of the acts sure to pass easily used to be the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). This year though...not so much. Republicans, hiding behind vapid concerns that VAWA has grown to encompass so many groups that none are satisfactorily singled out for protection, are once again hiding their heads in the sand and pretending that our shores and borders are not so much closer to those of other nations than they used to be. Read this Huffington Post Article carefully. That VAWA was supposed to extend even to Native Americans (people who were here long before any of the ancestors of Congress immigrated to this country) and the LGBT community became a point of contention, erasing any legitimate objections that VAWA's reach too easily protected illegal immigrants. As a former prosecutor, I can assure you domestic violence knows no geographic, gender, age, socio-economic, race, or cultural bounds.
The spirit and letter of the Act are designed to protect those who are no longer capable of protecting themselves. If fewer and fewer people are "worthy" of such protection, we as a nation just continue to erase the words sitting at the feet of Lady Liberty.
