So what we now learn is that basically we have a false accusation. LaShawn seems to have been about the first to call it and her follow up post appears to be right on the money.
I feel sorry for the Lacrosse team who seem to have been outrageously slandered as a group but that is not in fact the people I'm most upset for. No what gets me really mad here is that in future the drug-adicted low-end sex workers, the ones who are frequently raped and beaten up by their pimps, clients, dealers etc., are now going to find that even fewer people believe them when they report abuse - until that is one of their beaters and/or rapists goes a bit far and they end up dead.
By effectively criminalizing sex jobs, as is the case in much of the USA, and by (now) making it likely that any complaint will be ignored the unfortunate women trapped at the bottom of this industry are at the mercy of their crminal pimps and dealers. You might think that the left of the US would be on their side but, on the whole, they may speak up for them but their actions are the opposite. If you think, as most do, that rape is bad, that female exploitation is bad, then you need to think through your response so that you ensure that future reports are treated seriously. I was completely on the feminist's side and utterly outraged at the defense tactics in the Orange County rape case recently - personally I think the entire legal defense team and the defendants should all have been publically sodomized by pool-cues, coke bottles etc so that they could understand the pain and suffering they caused their victim - but I'm not at all happy with rape accusations that don't stand up. The deal here is that if you end up getting people sympathising for some innocents who are accused of rape when it isn't then you end up getting people sympathising with scumbags who actually did rape women and sympathy for the accused when it is undeserved means that they will probably walk free and rape more women.
Note that I'm extremely unhappy with the sex "industry" as a whole but that doesn't mean I want to ban it, apart from anything else no government anywhere in the world has succeeding in doing anything other than driving it underground and making it more of a profitable activity for criminals. Indeed there is an argument that says that if you remove the opportunity for prostitution and other sex jobs you are removing one way that some women manage to survive and potentially get out of some pretty ugly situations. I don't think that argument is enough on its own to swing me but it is not implausible. Certainly similar unexpected consequences have occured from other well-meaning efforts, such as the elimination of child labour leading to an increase in Bombay street kids (according to an NHK program).