Friday, December 8, 2017

Silence Breakers Bring Down Two More in Congress

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Yesterday proved  to be an especially hard one for sexual abusers and harassers in Congress.  Early in the day Senator Al Franken of Minnesota succumbed to an effort by several of his female colleagues - and a couple of males - in the Senate to force his resignation and announced that he would give up his senate seat in the "near future."  Franken, a man who has been an unrelenting advocate for advancing the rights of women, denied some of the allegations against him, but presumably saw the need to remove himself from the headlines so that Democrats could retain the high ground in the growing tide of sexual abuse revelations.  Some of the senators who had called on him to resign reportedly cried as he did so.

The other resignation came from a man who is not nearly as revered as Franken.  Arizona Congressman Trent Franks, my former representative in Congress, announced that he would resign at the end of January over allegations made by a pair of his former staffers.  Franks admitted that he was being investigated by the House Ethics Committee over comments regarding "surrogacy" that he had made to two female staff members.    It turns out that the highly sanctimonious congressman had essentially asked the women to consider having his baby.  He said that he and Mrs. Franks desperately wanted a child but were unable to conceive.

Trent Franks is a one-trick-pony as a congressman, only springing to attention whenever the subject of abortion is being discussed.  He built his career on being a ferocious advocate of fetuses, and a constant thorn in the side of the pro-choice movement.  Franks' total focus on sexual reproduction and limiting health care options of women provided an ironic backdrop to the allegations that he tried to talk a pair of women in a subservient position to him into carrying his child.  That dog didn't hunt well at all!

Time Magazine has announced that the "silence breakers," the women who have started coming forth to illuminate America's long, shabby history of sexual abuse leveled against women by men in positions of power, will be this year's collective "person of the year."   Their brave efforts represent a cathartic moment in American history, one that is beginning to unwind a long and complicated history of repugnant and illegal behavior.  As these women bravely step forward, hopefully they will kick down barriers and allow all women to enjoy a life of fairness and respect that their mothers and grandmothers were denied under the hard shell of the patriarchy.

And good riddance to vagina-monitor Trent Franks!

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