David Badash, "'Not Relevant': Franklin Graham Says Alleged Kavanaugh Assault Just Something 'He Did as a Teenager'":
In his CBN interview, Graham falsely claimed, "there wasn't a crime committed."But sexual assault and attempted rape are crimes. And if the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh are true, there is no statute of limitations in Maryland and he could still face charges.
"These are two teenagers and it's obvious that she said no and he respected it and walked away."
That is also egregiously false, according to the accusations in Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's letter.
"Brett Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted me during high school in the early 1980's," she states. "Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me," she adds.
"With Kavanaugh's hand over my mouth I feared he may inadvertently kill me," she says, noting he was highly intoxicated.
"After a few attempts to get away, I was able to take this opportune moment to get up and run across to a hallway bathroom. I locked the bathroom door behind me."
Graham continued to defend Kavanaugh, saying: "He just flat out says that's not true.
Regardless if it was true, these are two teenagers and she said no and he respected that so I don't know what the issue is."
Clearly he did not respect her wishes, nor did he walk away, based on Dr. Blasey Ford's letter.
The same religious leaders who told me as a teenager that premarital sex was a grave sin that would ruin my life forever have declared that no one can fault a 17-year-old boy for a little attempted rape.— Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) September 19, 2018
Hello, female high school student here. I would just like to say that the emergence of this whole "teenage boys should get a pass because they're not mature enough to understand consent" narrative is probably one of the most unsettling things I have ever witnessed.— Emma Thatcher (@emmajthatcher) September 18, 2018
Elizabeth Bruenig, "She reported her rape. Her hometown turned against her. Can justice ever be served?":
I wanted to understand why it had to be as bad as it was — why she wasn't just doubted but hated, not simply mocked but exiled — and why it had always lingered on my conscience like an article of unfinished business, something I had meant to do but hadn’t.
I wanted to look directly at the dark things that are revealed when episodes of brutality unfold and all pretense of civilization temporarily fades, and I wanted to understand them completely.
Otherwise, I thought, they could at any time pull me under. And I could watch mutely while something like this happened again….
It’s obvious that vulnerability will elicit viciousness from predators. But then there are the rest of us — the cast of Arlingtonians beginning with midnight partygoers and ending with high school rumor-listeners who, with honorable exception, ridiculed Wyatt at worst and ignored her at best. Wyatt’s story calls on us to inquire: What motivates otherwise ordinary people to abandon all pretense of mercy when faced with the abject need for it?
To look into the eyes of a vulnerable person is to see yourself as you might be. It's a more harrowing experience than one might readily admit. There is a version of yourself made powerless, status diminished, reliant upon the goodwill of others. One response is empathy: to shore up your reserves of charity and trust, in hopes that others will do the same. Another is denial: If you refuse to believe you could ever be in such a position — perhaps by blaming the frail for their frailty or ascribing their vulnerability to moral failure — then you never have to face such an uncomfortable episode of imagination. You come away disgusted with the weak, but content in the certainty you aren’t among them.
Or they make you feel helpless, just by dint of how little you can do to stop what's being done to them. The temptation in that case is to look away, let it all be someone else's problem, or deny that there’s a problem in need of resolution in the first place.
So, wait ... is Focus on the Family rallying behind Kavanaugh because of the perjury or because of the attempted rape or because of the voting suppression or because of the contempt for disability rights or ...?— Fred Clark (@SlacktivistFred) September 20, 2018
Wow. When alleged child molester Roy Moore is the guy vouching for you... https://t.co/24E9DXFpck— A_random_scientist27 (@Random_Neuro123) September 20, 2018
Frankkiln Graham just told CBN News Tuesday "it's just a shame that a person like Judge Kavanaugh who has a stellar record-that somebody can bring something up that he did as a teenager close to 40 years ago. That's not relevant." Just another evangelical excusing attempted rape.— Frank Schaeffer (@Frank_Schaeffer) September 20, 2018
Charles Pierce, "Republicans Want a Quick and Dirty He Said-She Said They Can Pretend Is an Actual Inquiry":
They want a quick and dirty he said-she said proceeding that they all can pretend is an actual inquiry.
Then they can vote with whatever conscience they still have being clear. They want Kavanaugh seated when the Court's term begins in October. That's why they're pretending there's a clock on this, as Senator Lindsey Graham pretty much admitted on Wednesday.
You know what's sad? Nearly 2 years after Trump's election, a significant proportion of Americans continue to believe that a male sexual predator is more fit for a leadership role than a woman of any moral standing.— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) September 19, 2018
When my mother was a little girl, one bright Sunday morning the pastor of her Baptist church in small-town south-central Arkansas stood in the pulpit and preached about how he had beaten the living daylights out of his wife the previous week.
He had done this before, he told the church. It's what the bible commands men to do when women are disobedient or insubordinate. Spare the rod and spoil the wife.
This is far from the only story I have heard about this. There is — believe it or not — an entire genre of stories about white evangelical pastors boasting about chastising their wives, tying them to chairs, lashing their naked backs, legs, stomachs, breasts.
Because God.
Who is, you understand, something of a mean, violent son of a bitch who commands straight white males to rule the world. Because they are made uniquely in His image.
The people descended from those same wife-beating preacher men now want to convince the rest of us that women and gay men are unique demonic presences in the world. They are uniquely demonic because their very existence, their way of being in the world, challenges the narrative of straight-white-men-are-gods.
If we let these people win — if we let this theology prevail and enshrine itself in law in our society — we will bring great misery into the lives of those made the enemy by this theology and the people spouting it. And make no mistake: winning is what they intend in seeing Kavanaugh placed on the Supreme Court.
Winning is their goal in stacking the Supreme Court. We are now a hair's breadth away from their victory.
