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Glad you brought it up! Turns out I'm on solid ground legally calling Harvey Weinstein a rapist. (Harvey Weinstein is a rapist.) Here's why…
Harvey Weinstein is a public figure. And under US libel law, it's not enough for a statement made against a public figure to be unfounded.
(Calling Harvey Weinstein a rapist isn't unfounded, of course, since he's a rapist. But stick with me for a moment.)
SCOTUS established the current standard for libeling a public figure in Times v. Sullivan in 1964. The relevant concept is "actual malice."
A statement satisfies the "actual malice" test if it was made "with knowledge…it was false or…reckless disregard of whether it was false."
So. Back to Harvey. Do I have knowledge that he's not a rapist? I do not. I have a sincere belief that he is a rapist. (He's a rapist.)
As for "reckless disregard," here's the definition of that term from Wharton's Law Dictionary. 
Was my claim (that Harvey Weinstein is a rapist) made in reckless disregard of the truth? No.
My claim that Weinstein is a rapist is made in the belief that the women who have credibly accused him of raping them are telling the truth.
So no, @jonkay, there's no chance of Harvey Weinstein successfully suing me for libel because I called him a rapist. (Also: He's a rapist.)
Could he sue me for calling him a rapist? He could. He won't, but he could. AND OH MY GOD I WISH HE WOULD.
I can think of few greater honors than being sued by Harvey Weinstein for calling him a rapist. Because Harvey Weinstein is a rapist.
Now. Laws differ in different countries, and the law is different if the person you're accusing isn't a public figure.
So if, for instance, you're in Britain, be careful about calling Julian @Assange, who is a rapist, a rapist.
And if you have a lot of money (like Harvey Weinstein, who is a rapist), that'd be a reason to be careful too.
But for us ordinary Americans, calling rapists who are public figures rapists carries virtually no legal risk.
And of course @jonkay wasn't really worried about me, a total stranger, putting myself in legal jeopardy.
What he's worried about, as a public figure who has himself been accused of horrible things, is preserving public decorum.
Is it reckless for me to call Harvey Weinstein a rapist? I suspect Jonathan Kay would argue it is. But so be it.
Because there is a risk as well—a far greater risk—when we are unwilling to call rapists rapists.
I'm not going to harm Harvey Weinstein, the rapist, by calling him a rapist. There's no risk there, and not much virtue either.
But if I refuse, on principle, to call Harvey Weinstein a rapist, as Kay would have me do? Well, that's a bad road to be on.
Because if I won't call anyone who hasn't been convicted of rape a rapist? Well, then what do I do when I learn something about a friend?
Unless you know her or him, Rose McGowan doesn't care much whether you call Harvey Weinstein a rapist. That's low-stakes for everyone.
What's not low-stakes is what you do when someone you know tells you something about something horrible that someone else you know did.
Now, I'm not telling you there's only one right way of responding when you hear something like that. I'm not saying that. I'm not.
But you know what you CAN'T do if you wind up in that position? Say you can't take a stand until there's a conviction in a court of law.
Because that's bullshit. It's just bullshit.
If you're not willing to call Weinstein a rapist, how are you going to stand with your community, your friends, against the rapist you know?
Harvey Weinstein is easy. Overwhelming evidence, no stakes. If you can't get the easy ones right, how are you going to handle the hard ones?
"Innocent until proven guilty" is for jurors, not community members. Not friends. Our job is harder. And we're the front lines.
Doing the easy stuff makes doing the hard stuff easier.
Lemon out.
Lemon out.
