May. 30, 2005 - 19:09 MDT

MIX 'N' MATCH

Sometimes things seem to fit together as if made for that exact purpose. There is an article in this morning's Rocky Mountain News by Julie Poppen of that paper. I quote in full:

Springs rape counselor awaits arrest

"Colorado Springs therapist Jennifer Bier freely spent her Sunday morning at church."

"But she knew the sanctuary found within the walls of Rocky Mountain Calvary church couldn't keep U.S. authorities armed with an arrest warrant away forever."

"Late last week a military judge ordered Bier arrested for failing to disclose confidential files pertaining to her sessions with a former Air Force cadet who alleges she was raped by a cadet commander in 2000."

"It's really kind of one of those situations where I know something's going to happen, but I have no idea when," Bier said."

"I think it's just appalling that this order places me and, to a larger extent, other therapists in the position of having to choose between serving our clients ethically or protecting ourselves," Bier said."

"Faced with such a choice, Bier said, she doesn't believe adequate therapy can be carried out."

"I'm mostly afraid victims won't come forward anymore," said Bier, who works at a rape crisis center in Colorado Springs."

"Air Force Judge David Brash, at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas, issued the warrant for Bier's arrest after months of asking her for information about her work with her client Jessica Brakey."

"A subpoena also was issued for the information."

"Bier has said that records of her sessions with clients are confidential, her personal property and protected by Colorado's rape shield law, which prevents disclosure of victim's counselling records."

"The Air Force is preparing to court-martial 1st Lt. Joseph Harding on charges of sexual assault on two female cadets in 1999 and 2000 while he was attending the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs."

"Harding graduated from the academy in 2002 and is stationed with the 14th Operations Support Squadron at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi."

"Bier has said she would go to jail for contempt of court rather than surrender her records."

"Bier's attorney, Wendy Murphy, who teaches at the New England School of Law in Massachusetts, said she would seek an emergency order in federal court this week to block Brash's action."

"Christine Hansen, executive director of the Miles Foundation, a support organization for military sexual assault victims, said similarly threatening tactics ar being faced by rape victim advocates and criminal investigators across the U.S." "They've experienced everything from being harassed to being threatened and subpoenaed," Hansen said Sunday."

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first arrest warrant we've seen," she added."

"Hansen, too, fears that fewer victims will seek critically important counselling in the aftermath of sex assaults if notes documenting their treatment are not protected."

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I am not a legal eagle, knowing the law to the last jot and tittle, but confidentiality seems to be the last place that we can afford to be ourselves. If the person being dealt with is not an offender, how can anyone possibly try to delve into their counselling records ? What earthly right do they have ?

Is the military as a whole, nation wide, trying to set up a process to discredit any woman who alleges assault ? Perhaps to put a lid on revealing those activities so that military males can do what the military males did from the time of ancient history ?

One thing that seems to be a thing of the present day is to delve into a person's sexual history to try to discredit what they are claiming. Just thinking about it, if a person has had various and sundry sexual partners it is usually because it is consensual. Moral or immoral -- it was consensual. Therefore to my mind that is a matter aside from what is before the court. Rape is rape, forcible sexual contact involving penetration, I think is the definition. What a person chooses to do of their own free will has nothing to do with being assaulted and forcibly raped.

Watch them bring 9/11 into this too.

There is a man, having a journal that I read frequently, a man whose opinions I respect and admire who wrote a great entry today. Michael of Bunt Sign is the man. May05/20050529.html

titled Sacrifice. My entry and his are truly to my mind the whole picture of today. His is a Memorial Day entry, but what he says in it I think fits into my MIX 'N' MATCH . . . . . . . . . .

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