Evangelical Leaders Want Senate to Ignore Kavanaugh Assault Charges

A triumvirate of moral bankruptcy. 

Remember when holier than thou evangelicals claimed that "character matters" and railed that Bill Clinton was unfit for office due to his affair with Monica Lewinsky?  Based on their support for Brett Kavanaugh despite credible allegations of attempted molestation, we now know that such claims were just plain lies motivated by a political agenda rather than any shred of a moral compass. It seems that with each passing day evangelicals and the so-called leaders become increasingly reprehensible and despicable. It is they, not those they malign who are morally bankrupt.  Thankfully, younger generations increasingly see them for what they truly are and are walking away from religion.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at the push to confirm Kavanaugh without a pause to hear Christine Blasey Ford's testimony.  Here are excerpts:

We are at a sensitive point in the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh where he has been charged with (and by no means cleared of) the sort of crime that should horrify conservative religious folk: the attempted rape of a 15-year-old girl. You’d think the Evangelical leaders who style themselves as spiritual counselors of Donald Trump and the Republican Party would be urging their allies to prayerfully consider the evidence and act as conscious moral agents before providing a lifetime appointment to the nation’s top court.

But as the New York Times reports, that’s not how they roll:

“One of the political costs of failing to confirm Brett Kavanaugh is likely the loss of the United States Senate,” said Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition who is in frequent contact with the White House.

The evangelist Franklin Graham, one of Mr. Trump’s most unwavering defenders, told the Christian Broadcasting Network this week, “I hope the Senate is smarter than this, and they’re not going to let this stop the process from moving forward and confirming this man.”

It’s no secret, of course, that Christian right leaders like Reed and Graham want a Supreme Court majority that will overturn Roe v. Wade and establish a “religious liberty” constitutional privilege to discriminate against ungodly LGBTQ people. Indeed, that is the basis of their highly transactional relationship with Donald J. Trump. They aren’t going to let a little thing like rape allegations stand in the way of cashing in.

[T]his attitude represents a strange moral myopia in which the determination to destroy or limit reproductive rights for women or gay rights generally justifies ignoring the grossest sins. It’s the same point of stunted view that enabled conservative Evangelicals to back Judge Roy Moore to the hilt in his 2017 Senate race despite credible evidence that he had a bad habit of hitting on teenage girls.Graham and his colleagues want their SCOTUS majority right now.

And at one of their favorite venues, the Values Voters Summit in Washington this weekend, Mitch McConnell is assuring them they’ll get their wish:  “Judge Kavanaugh "will be on the United States Supreme Court" despite what you're seeing with the ongoing fight over his confirmation”

At the same confab, another Christian right warhorse, Gary Bauer, said he is praying for Christine Blasey Ford. But he doesn’t favor doing anything to offer her justice. That’s for great men like future Justice Kavanaugh.