Only three weeks after the shocking story of a young woman placed in a cell with convicted males, preceding being raped relentlessly, another story you don't really expect to some out of some of the more "Christian" nations pops up in the Guardian.

A judge in Australia was facing calls to step down yesterday after she failed to jail nine males who admitted gang-raping a 10-year-old girl in an Aboriginal community in 2005, saying the victim "probably agreed" to have sex with them.

This all comes after public outrage by groups around the world after a woman gang-raped lost an appeal to the outcome and got further punishment herself.

Now I am sure that there will be a similar level of outcry here for this story, rape is a unifying issue across the world for many, and so it is not the hypocrisy of nations that I intend to question here. In fact, what most concerns me is what this is going to be blamed on. My best guess, from the tone of that article, is that it'll be heaped on the Judge. Perhaps she's a racist, perhaps there is corruption in the ranks, I certainly don't know. But one thing it certainly won't be blamed on is religion.

Going back to that story from the middle east at the beginning of November, conversations amongst people I knew and around online communities were very quick to make their digs at the "Islamic" part of the judicial system in question. No doubt fuelled by the usual suspects people were discussing this outrage as if it were a product of Muslim religion. I guess on a technical level they are of course true, without the laws based on Islam for segregation of women there wouldn't be reason to charge her with anything for her involvement in her own abuse and humiliation. But what is to say that the trend here and in the US for not accepting victims of rape for who they are...victims...isn't also stemmed in religious belief and centuries of its culture that has resulted in a less than liberal way of life?

While it is only a student thesis, and the result of a quick search...it is interesting to note that this study shows a little credibility to the idea that people like this aren't exactly alone in the world.

This indicates that individuals with high levels ofauthoritarianism also had high acceptance of rape myths, a negative outlook towards rape victims, and endorsed more traditional sex roles than did individuals with a low level of authoritarianism.

Now given that the report also states that Christianity has a positive correlation with Authoritarianism, while I cannot and will not cast aspersions over faith causing these attitudes, I will cast aspersions over faith shaping personal philosophies.

I doubt very much that we'll hear that this, and the potentially corrupt police in Christian Brazil, is a result of Christian upbringing and centuries of authoritarian dogma lived through and repeated down the generations. Yet this is precisely what our media and general public throw at Islamic courts at every occasion they can get. Perhaps we should take some time to look in the mirror and realise that we all, everyone in the world, have centuries of culture shaping yet negative lifestyles to combat on the way to a more peaceful way of life. We all have brought situations like the lack of consideration given to rape cases, the punishment of victims and sexism in the judiciary through from our great grandparents and beyond, no matter where we all are individually as societies and cultures around the globe we are *all* moving away from a very sordid and sour history.

Lets blame these tragedies of justice on what is really at fault, corrupt individuals, broken systems, and inequality yet to be rectified...not at the roots of religious practice that have long left this house after leaving the mess.