Word: sexualism
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Words are powerful. In court, they can make or break a case. But just how far should the judicial system go to control them? That's the question central to one case in Lincoln, Nebraska, where a sexual assault trial has morphed into a federal case over the First Amendment rights of witnesses and, more broadly, the language surrounding rape...
...story goes back to Oct. 30, 2004, when Tory Bowen, then a 21-year-old student at the University of Nebraska, met Pamir Safi, an Army reservist, at a downtown Lincoln bar. After sharing drinks, they left the bar together, went back to Safi's apartment and engaged in sexual intercourse. Bowen says she was too drunk - and, she believes, drugged - to consent to sex. Safi says their encounter was consensual...
...second trial was scheduled to begin last spring. This time, Bowen refused to comply with the court-ordered language ban, which had been expanded to include the terms "sexual assault kit" and "sexual assault nurse." On Bowen's behalf, protesters demonstrated outside the Lincoln courthouse, and a petition, which Bowen signed, circulated on the Internet to change Nebraska law. Because of the publicity surrounding the case, Judge Cheuvront declared a mistrial during jury selection, accusing Bowen of inciting public furor over her case. "Ms. Bowen and her friends hoped to intimidate this court and interfere with the selection...
...Church in apparent reference to the sex scandals. Among the boldest administrative moves of Benedict since his 2005 election was the disciplining last year of Mexico's Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the 86-year-old founder of the conservative Legionaries of Christ, who had long been accused of past sexual abuse...
...real folk in the old country, can now feel more free (not that Tony ever held back) to use the Italian "V" word that - more or less - corresponds with the English "F" word. Italy's top court ruled on Tuesday that "though representative of obscene concepts [and] of a sexual nature," that world-renowned 10-letter word is merely a "vulgar manifestation of irritation." The ruling overturned a verbal abuse conviction of a 60-year-old local politician in the central town of Aquila who had directed the expression at a political rival during a 1999 city council meeting...