It’s no secret that political rhetoric on both sides of the ideological spectrum is getting pretty ridiculous.

Whether it is conservatives trying to paint President Barack Obama as a Kenyan-born socialist or liberals likening Gov. Scott Walker to a violent dictator, such exaggerated insults have become far too common and hinder reasonable discussions by inflaming emotions.

At least annoying digs like these are so over-the-top and ridiculous that most people can easily brush them off as untrue.

But political debate using analogies to rape – specifically a certain victim of rape – are ridiculously inappropriate and really tick me off.

Earlier this month, news broke in a small Texas community that an 11-year-old girl was allegedly the victim of a gang rape last fall, with upward of 18 males involved from age 14 to 26. In a town of about 9,000 people, these allegations obviously had quite an impact.

And as it was reported by community members that this young girl would wear clothes that were inappropriate for her age, apparently a Florida state legislator decided to seize this tidbit of information for her own benefit.

According to The St. Petersburg Times, Republican Rep. Kathleen Passidomo referenced the Texas rape while in a committee hearing for a school dress code bill last week.

“There was an article about an 11-year-old girl who was gang raped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed like a 21-year-old prostitute,” Passidomo said. “And her parents let her attend school like that.”

If it sounds like Passidomo is blaming the victim’s appearance as a direct cause for the rape, it’s because she is. The article even included a line saying that no one from either party addressed her comment at the meeting, likely because both her Republican colleagues and the Democrats knew that Passidomo was in dangerous territory.

As if that girl has not been through enough trauma, she has people telling her that the rape was her own fault by wearing trashy clothes. Both the Florida legislator and members of her own community pointed their fingers at that young girl in an interview with The New York Times, saying she is ruining the alleged rapists’ lives with these charges.

“It’s just destroyed our community,” community member Sheila Harrison said to The New York Times. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

Heaven forbid a bunch of rapists have to live with a stigma.

It is important to remember that many of the celebrities that tweens worship nowadays are not known for their wholesome wardrobe choices. As a result, dressing sexy has become an unfortunate trend among younger girls. But it’s not as if these outfits have power over men like a Pavlov’s dog experiment wherein if you ring a bell they can’t help but rape someone.

However, if they do, I’d say we have a much, much bigger problem on our hands involving the males of our species.

I think it’s safe to say males give themselves more credit than that, so to say these outfits have a direct causation effect for rape is grossly inaccurate and unfair. All Passidomo did with her argument is heap more emotional trauma on an 11-year-old rape victim who is already pretty scarred for life.

Nice work.

But if you think I’m unfairly picking on Republicans with that reference, I’ll throw in a similar example involving a very well-known Democrat.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Vice President Joe Biden, while at a Philadelphia campaign fundraising event last Friday, compared the Republican’s view of the country’s economic woes as “blaming the rape victim.”

“… It’s amazing how these Republicans, the right wing of this party- whose philosophy threw us into this God-awful hole we’re in, gave us the tremendous deficit we’ve inherited – that they’re now using … the very economic condition they have created to blame the victim,” Biden said at the fundraiser.

He preambled this statement by saying “blame the victim” was in fact a long-time Republican mantra in actual rape cases.

So, the impression I got from this is that Biden is basically saying the Republicans “raped” the U.S. economy and now they are blaming the “victims” – Democrats and their supporters – for the problem.

How’s that for civility in discourse?

I’m sure even the Democrats attending that fundraiser were wondering just what Biden was doing with such an awkward and inappropriate analogy between rape and the economy, and Obama was probably irritated that Biden had yet another face-palm moment.

I think we can all agree that rape is a serious matter, too serious to be used in a quest for a political power play against opponents. Politicians of every ideological background would do well to limit their discussions of rape to an actual discussion of rape.

Alicia Yager ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism and French.