RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina father and pastor is gaining national attention after writing an open letter to the father of a Stanford University student convicted of rape.
There is outrage after a judge sentenced Brock Turner to six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, after prosecutors asked for six years.
Turner’s father wrote a letter to the judge saying his son deserved probation and that “jail time was too steep a price for 20 minutes of action out of his 20-year life.”
North Raleigh pastor John Pavlovitz said that compelled him to weigh in on the issue and write a letter to Turner’s father.
CLICK TO READ PAVLOVITZ’S LETTER
“Brock is not the victim here. His victim is the victim,” the letter reads. “There's no scenario where your son should be the sympathetic figure here. He is the assailant. He is the rapist."
Pavlovitz said he believes Turner’s father’s response really minimized the damage of the victim.
He said he hopes his letter will also trigger new conversations about how fathers raise boys to be men and how rape and rape victims are discussed.
The Stanford rape case has now reached Capitol Hill and is enticing lawmakers to push for action to prevent future violence on college collapses.
Lawmakers said college sex assaults have become a problem so big, they are demanding a Congressional response.
The White House said the president will likely weigh in on the issue too.
"The President believes strongly that sexual assault is wrong, that there's no place for it in our military. There's no place for it on college campuses. There's no place for it in our society," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
Lawmakers are now pushing for a vote on a bill that would require harsher penalties for rapists and better train schools to handle sex assaults.
Vice President Joe Biden wrote an open letter to the Stanford sexual assault survivor. Read his letter here.
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