By now most of us have heard about the amendment introduced by Senator Al Franken to the Defense Appropriations Act of 2010 that would allow the employees of military subcontractors who are victims of sexual assault to sue their employers (currently binding arbitration is their only option). It’s been all over the news lately because of Jamie Lee Jones, who is suing Haliburton/KBR after she was subject to a vicious sexual assault by other KBR employees, than put in a shipping container for 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be fired.

Nathan Havey makes several good points about it in a well-reasoned piece on The Huffington Post.

At one extreme, one in six women in the United States will be the victim of sexual violence in her lifetime (RAINN). At the other, controlling for differing industries and employment levels, women earn $0.77 to the dollar that men earn. And this is the best it has ever been … it is critically important, particularly for the men reading this, that you take a moment and really consider the idea that we are living in a system that started with women as property and is still a long way from ‘equal.’

Do these Senators consciously support rape? Of course not. But their actions absolutely support a status quo in which rape and sexual violence flourish.

An anonymous blogger started the satirical website RepublicansForRape.org as their form of protest, and Jon Stuart took the Republicans to task about this in his usual pointed but humorous style:

It’s fairly obvious why so many Republicans are against this amendment, given how much money military contractors have donated to the Republican party, and of course it’s reprehensible. (Disclaimer: I vehemently disagree with most of the Republican Party’s positions, but I don’t think most Republicans are evil. Although I’ll admit I wonder about Dick Cheney.)

But it turns out the amendment’s biggest obstacle may be a Democrat: Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the third longest-serving senator in history, who heads up the Senate Appropriations Committee, is reportedly considering removing the provision after pressure by the military subcontractors.

The Department of Defense, with the support of the Obama Administration, is also apparently against the amendment.

Health care reform, meanwhile, is being held up by Democrats, not Republicans — a point on which Inside Washington host Ana Marie Cox and her guests (one Democrat and one Republican) all agreed this week.

“Never let it be said that the Democratic Party is monolithic, or unified for that matter,” blogger Tracie Powell summed up on CQ Politics in her analysis of the military contracts amendment. But The Onion made a similar point in the fake headline they tweeted out last month: “BREAKING: Democrats Hoping To Take Control Of Congress From Republican Minority In 2010.”

With friends like these, who needs Republicans?