By Brittany Woodcock [1]
BELLEVILLE – Bay of Quinte Conservative candidate Tim Durkin is apologizing for a 2013 opinion piece [2] about the first Belleville SlutWalk that sparked outrage on Your Prince Edward County’s [3] Facebook page this week.
In an email sent to QNet News, Durkin says his 2013 op-ed criticizing SlutWalk “missed the mark.”
He went on to write: “This past summer, I met with the organizers of the SlutWalk and heard directly from victims, supporters, and volunteers. I learned a lot and I apologized. I firmly believe victims are never at fault.”
His apology was accepted by Reclaim Your Power Belleville [4], the organizers of the SlutWalk.
“He apologized and acknowledged that rape or any sexual assault is never the victim’s fault. We accepted his apology. We invited Mr. Durkin and a few other politicians to our walk this year. He was the only one who came. He listened, he learned, and he supported,” the organizers wrote in a text message sent to QNet News.
The 2013 opinion piece appeared in the Belleville Intelligencer. It talked about Belleville’s first SlutWalk and was titled “Sometimes being safe is better [2].”
Durkin wrote that choosing who we want to be with and what we want to wear are the two biggest freedoms we have in this world. But he added that “in our imperfect world, if a human being chooses to wear very little clothing, they will sometimes give terrible human beings the impression that it is OK to take advantage.”
He goes on to write that sexual violence isn’t right but that “terrible things are done by bad people.”
“And some of those terrible, possibly ill, people are set off by the sight of someone dressed in provocative clothing,” Durkin wrote.
“Since we know that evil people do exist, perhaps we can help protect each other by dressing more modestly,” he wrote. “Rape is evil, but it is something that is in this world.”
This week, the 2013 article made the rounds on Facebook. It’s garnered 100 comments by concerned residents.
One of the commenters said, “Tim missed the point of the SlutWalk. The actual stats show that it doesn’t matter what people wear – nuns in habits, choir boys in robes, toddlers in bathing suits, women in jeans and Ts, have all been victims of rape. A rapist is the cause of rape 100% of the time.”
But one commenter had a different take.
“I took a whole different view from this article. I thought he was saying that in a perfect world and safe world we could wear anything but unfortunately we don’t. We live in a broken and sometimes evil world where sick predators live. Just look at our sex trafficking problem in Canada,” the commenter wrote.