sexual assault
"I will probably be back next week and the week after that forever and ever,” Strong concludes, “because this isn't just a scandal. It didn't just start this week. It's just actual reality for half of the population.”
FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 25, 2017, file photo, U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore speaks at a rally, in Fairhope, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)
Conservative Christian supporters of Roy Moore are defending the U.S. Senate candidate against charges of sexually assaulting a teenager decades ago — and one of them used the biblical story of Mary and Joseph to rationalize sex between an adult and a minor.
As someone who served as a fulltime Christian minister for more than a dozen years, and who later worked for a nonprofit that mobilized men and boys to advocate for women and girls, I’d like to take a moment to focus on the role of churches. I believe that churches must change how they address sexual violence.
Reading and hearing the stories of sexual predator Harvey Weinstein's assaults against so many women has been painful for all of us. The sense of powerful male entitlement to harass, abuse, or assault whomever they want, and by any means necessary, crosses political lines from Weinstein to Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes of Fox News, to Bill Clinton, to current President of the United States Donald Trump. From Hollywood, to the media, to Washington, to workplaces and college campuses and even churches in our country and beyond, this male predatory behavior is common. This Sunday’s Washington Post Outlook cover headline put it well: “A World of Weinsteins."
If and when a survivor manages to leave an abusive situation, they still face many hurdles in their immigrant community. Some fear that stories of abuse may threaten whatever positive image the community has worked hard to shore up in a time of fear and distrust. Aisha Rahman, Executive Director of KARAMAH, a group of Muslim women lawyers representing human rights, told a story of a Somali woman living in the small town of Lewistown, Maine. After counseling and support, she finally felt able to testify about the sexual assault she experienced, yet only two men in her community were able to interpret for her. During her testimony, the men translated her stories in much softer language (“He was mean to her”), and themselves repeatedly asked her questions like, “Do you really want to expose your husband? Do you really want to expose our community?
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4. Do not wait to have a daughter to finally respect women.
You can respect us because we are human, with all of the glory, nuance, and mess that comes with it. You do not need to imagine a woman as your mother or aunt or cousin to respect her. You can respect her because of the soul that she carries and the life that she lives. Her relationship to you, her partner, her father, or anyone else should not be what defines your respect.
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"On one side, it's a bold declarative statement that 'I'm not ashamed' and 'I'm not alone.' On the other side, it's a statement from survivor to survivor that says 'I see you, I hear you, I understand you and I'm here for you or I get it," says Tarana Burke.
Women are showing that, despite being subject to the most violent and forceful manifestations of our patriarchal society and culture, they are willing to stand up in defiance and in solidarity to ensure that we as a society no longer allow incidents of sexual harassment and violence to go unchallenged, unnoticed, and unbelieved. And almost certainly, many other women who have experienced harassment or assault have decided understandably not to speak out. “Survivors don’t owe us their stories” explained Alexis Benveniste on twitter.
Faith communities can play a powerful role in preventing violence and supporting survivors, but collectively we’re falling short. Two-thirds (65 percent) of pastors say they speak once a year or less about sexual and domestic violence, with 1 in 10 never addressing it at all. This failure has a deep and lasting impact.
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She said the Obama- era directives were created with good intentions, but good intentions in this case are not enough. Her vision, she said, is to return to a system that prioritizes due process rights for students that are accused in an attempt to uncover “the whole truth.”
1. ICE Officers Instructed to Take Action Against All Undocumented Immigrants, Regardless of Criminal Histories
“Between February and May, the Trump administration arrested, on average, 108 undocumented immigrants a day with no criminal record, an uptick of some 150 percent from the same time period a year ago.”
2. Officials Say the Answer to Chicago’s Violence Is Jobs. But On What Scale?
WBEZ Chicago did the calculation. Here’s how much it would cost in the first year to employ the target group of more than 30,000 people.
3. Liberating Theology from the Intellectual One-Percenters
How can people who do not reside within academia gain access to the treasure trove of knowledge that is Christian theology?
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Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission have affirmed ethicist Russell Moore, despite his criticism of President Trump that caused some to consider withholding funds from the denomination.
“For us not to stand in affirmation of the principles that Dr. Moore has espoused would be unfaithful to the mission entrusted to us by the Convention,” wrote the Executive Committee of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in a statement posted on March 20, on the website of the agency that Moore leads.
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President Trump is reportedly considering naming former Baylor University President Ken Starr to head the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom.
The ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom monitors religious persecution and discrimination worldwide, and develops programs to promote religious freedom, according to the State Department website.
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If President Obama’s appearance at the Notre Dame commencement in 2009 sparked an unprecedented uproar among American Catholics, imagine what inviting President Trump to graduation might provoke.
That concern is making Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins, think twice about making a pitch for the incoming U.S. president to receive an honorary degree, an appearance that almost any school would normally covet — and one that the iconic Catholic university has been more successful than others in securing.
Former Speaker of the House and Donald Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich appeared on Fox News' The Kelly File Tuesday evening to discuss the final campaign push two weeks from Election Day. In a conversation about the debates and state of Trump's campaign, Gingrich quickly accused Kelly of media bias for not giving equal attention to Hillary Clinton's leaked emails and speech in which she mentioned "open borders." But when Kelly pointed out the seriousness of sexual assault allegations, Gingrich went on the attack.
It is not just in the courtroom where women are not always believed. If you have been following the news over the last few weeks, you have seen and heard and read about so many vivid and horrifying examples, whether it be sexual assault or domestic violence.
Let’s try to put aside the political ramifications of all this. The feelings and emotions that have been unleashed reach far beyond any single candidate. They get to the core of our lives — how we treat one another, how we stand up for those who are under assault, how we live as men and women in our society.
Trump’s comments about women and sexual assault, Muslims, minorities, etc., are difficult to hear because they’re coming from a man running for president — but also because it forces us to confront our own worst tendencies. Trump is able to do and say these things with little or no consequence because of his privilege as a wealthy, white man. And before you think he’s different from you, before you distance yourself from his actions, consider your own privilege and how you’ve used it to say and do things that are insensitive and inappropriate.
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On Oct. 13, Lou Dobbs, an anchor for Fox Business Network, helped circulate the address and phone number of Jessica Leeds, one of the women who have recently come forward to accuse Donald Trump of inappropriate sexual contact. Dobbs tweeted a link to a news site that published Leeds’ address and phone number taken from public records and also quoted a tweet that included Leeds’ contact information. Dobbs has 794,000 followers.
Of course this it is not “just talk” as he and his defenders have claimed. But also concerning is the response from some Republican and religious leaders who had previously supported Trump now saying they can't anymore because of the women in their lives — daughters, wives, and mothers — who they want to protect. Women don’t need protection from men; women need men to stop being predators, enablers, and bystanders. Women are human beings made in the image of God regardless of their relationship to a man. This isn’t a woman’s issue; it’s a human issue.
Screenshot, via Washington Post/Access Hollywood.
When we come across bullies and predators in our world, we can respond with revulsion, or with silence. Bullies and predators want to have cheerleaders around them, encouraging their awful words and deeds. If we won’t applaud them, bullies and predators want us to at least abstain from criticizing them.
That’s why we’ve seen such a pushback against so-called “political correctness” by hate groups.