Benjamin Franklin once famously stated “That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved.” And he was right in saying this. This principle was deeply interwoven into the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and all early American laws. It was based in English common law and before that Roman laws and before that Biblical law.

The MeToo Movement’s Assault on Justice

It is ironic that a movement that purports to fight for justice for women who have been sexually assaulted by men is itself guilty of an even more heinous assault on a bedrock principle of American, Western and Biblical justice.

On November 21^st 2017, the Feminist Columnist Emily Lindin wrote the following statements on her twitter account:

“Here’s an unpopular opinion: I’m actually not at all concerned about innocent men losing their jobs over false sexual assault/harassment allegations.”

“First, false allegations VERY rarely happen, so even bringing it up borders on a derailment tactic. It’s a microscopic risk in comparison to the issue at hand (worldwide, systemic oppression of half the population).”

“Sorry. If some innocent men’s reputations have to take a hit in the process of undoing the patriarchy, that is a price I am absolutely willing to pay.”

And more recently a Christian woman emailed me yesterday and made the following statement:

“Your article about Kavanaugh really bothered me, and I have no doubt that a lot of victims of molestation will be highly offended.

Now I understand that false allegations do happen, and I understand that usually we have innocent until proven guilty rule. But I think with rape and molestation, it should be a false positive system, because we need to protect alleged victims, especially if they’re children, protected from the accused until there is proof that the allegations aren’t true. If victims are not believed it can have dire and tragic consequences. It does unthinkable harm to genuine rape/molestation victims, and it just makes it harder for victims to be believed. There are two sides to this. There is no proof that Kavanaugh is innocent.

I will flat-out say that I believe the women speaking against Kavanaugh. Also, there can’t always be proof that something happened because sexual predators are very smart in hiding their crimes.”

Do you see what these women are saying? The are literally reversing what Benjamin Franklin said and are basically saying this:

“Better 100 Innocent Men Should Suffer Than One Sexual Assaulter or Rapist Should Escape”

Now the women who take this position comfort themselves with some statistics on false reporting of rape and sexual assault. We will discuss this next.

Are Only 2 Percent of Rape Accusations False?

A common statement you will see being floated around many sites that want to proclaim all men accused of rape as guilty until proven innocent are statements like this:

“Only 2 percent of rape accusations are false according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center”

First, we must understand the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) is not perfect in its information. It is an agenda driven organization so its numbers could be skewed to fit that agenda. But let’s take look at the NSVRC website to see the complete statement they made on this subject of false rape claims:

“The prevalence of false reporting is low between 2% and 10%. For example, a study of eight U.S. communities, which included 2,059 cases of sexual assault, found a 7.1% rate of false reports (i). A study of 136 sexual assault cases in Boston found a 5.9% rate of false reports (h). Researchers studied 812 reports of sexual assault from 2000-2003 and found a 2.1% rate of false reports (g).”

So we can see that the 2 percent number that all the MeToo folks give us for false rape claims is actually on the low end of the estimate.  It could actually be as high as 10 percent.

Crying “Rape”!

Cathy Young wrote an article for Slate.com back in 2014 entitled “Crying Rape”. In it she made some interesting observations what she called the “serious problem” of false accusations of rape against men. Here are some excerpts from that article:

“How frequent are false accusations? A commonly cited estimate, which may have originated with feminist author Susan Brownmiller in the 1970s, is that they account for only about 2 percent of rape reports. After the Oberst fiasco, feminist blogger Rebecca Watson posted a video asserting that, statistically, you will be wrong two out of 100 times if you presume a rape accusation to be true and 98 out of 100 times if you presume it to be false.

In fact, as Emily Bazelon and Rachael Larimore wrote in Slate five years ago, official data on what law enforcement terms “unfounded” rape reports (that is, ones in which the police determine that no crime occurred) yield conflicting numbers, depending on local policies and procedures—averaging 8 percent to 10 percent of all reported rapes.

…
In challenging “the myth of the lying woman,” feminists have been creating their own counter-myth: that of the woman who never lies.

…

Our focus on getting justice for women who are sexually assaulted is necessary and right. We are still far from the day when every woman who makes a rape accusation gets a proper police investigation and a fair hearing. But seeking justice for female victims should make us more sensitive, not less, to justice for unfairly accused men. In practical terms, that means finding ways to show support for victims of sexual violence without equating accusation and guilt, and recognizing that the wrongly accused are real victims too. It means not assuming that only a conviction is a fair outcome for an alleged sex crime. It means, finally, rejecting laws and policies rooted in the assumption that wrongful accusations are so vanishingly rare they needn’t be a cause for concern. To put it simply, we need to stop presuming guilt.”

Even NSVRC recognizes that incidents of false rape claims could be as high as 10 percent. The higher number of 10 percent is backed up by other groups outside the NSVRC  as well.

Putting a Human Face on the Victims of False Rape Claims

In 2002, Brian Banks was a football star at the age of 17 destined for college football was accused of rape and kidnapping after what he said was consensual sexual encounter with Wanetta Gibson. And the encounter actually left no trace DNA on Gibson’s clothing. Brian Bank’s attorneys told him he was facing 41 years in prison if the jury believed her so he plead no-contest to get a reduced sentence of 6 years. Wanetta Gibson sued Long Beach Schools and received a 1.5-million-dollar settlement for her supposed rape. After Banks served a little over 5 years in prison and was released Gibson met him and later prosecutors and admitted she lied. He sued her and won in June of 2013.

In 2003, James Grissom was convicted of the raping Sara Ylen. She had picked him out of a page of mug shots presented to her by the police. Later she would admit she had been looking at pictures of men from sex offender registries before seeing his mugshot. After serving almost 10 years of a 15 to 35-year sentence, James Grissom was released from prison after the District Attorney in St. Clair County Michigan asked the court to vacate his conviction and dismiss all charges. It turned out that Sara Ylen would later go on to make many more false rape claims. In December 2013, Sara Ylen was sentenced to serve 5 to 10 years in prison for making false rape accusation claims against two men.

In 2005, William McCaffrey was accused by Biurny Peguero of raping her. With no DNA evidence a Manhattan jury convicted the man of rape. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. After he had served 2 years of his 20 year sentence a DNA test showed the bite mark on the woman’s arm did not even come from a man – it came from a woman. She would later admit to a Priest and the Prosecutors that she had lied about the whole event. He was exonerated and released by a judge in 2009.

In 2006, three white college students on the Duke Lacrosse team were accused of raping a black stripper they hired for a party. It would later turn out that an ambitious DA who was using this case to help with his re-election bid violated many codes of legal ethics and in the end based his entire case on false evidence. The three young men were exonerated at trial.

In 2009, an 18-year-old Black student named Danmell Ndonye accused 5 fellow students of gang raping her in a dormitory bathroom at Hofstra University. This case quickly fell apart when within 72 hours of her claim when police obtained cell phone videos from someone in the bathroom filming the whole event. Slate writer Emily Bazelon in her article “Smeary Lines” wrote regarding this case that “The weird lesson for men who have group sex in bathrooms: Film it on your cell phone”.

In 2013, Joanie Faircloth made a false claim that the singer Connor Oberst had raped her a decade earlier when she was a 16-year-old teen. A year later she issued a public statement recanting and saying she made it up to get attention.

In 2016, Nikki Yovino accused two college football players of raping her. She later admitted she made the story up. She was sentenced in August of 2018 to 1 year in prison for making false rape allegations.

What a MeToo America Would Look Like

Socialists and Liberals often don’t fully think through the consequences of their actions.

Imagine if we passed the following as the 28^th Amendment to the United States Constitution:
“The presumption of innocence is hereby suspended for men accused of sexually related crimes against women. All women are to be presumed as credible and truthful in their accusations against men for sexually related crimes. Men are to be presumed guilty of any sexually related crime they are accused of by a woman and bear the burden of proving themselves innocent in such cases. Even if a woman’s claims are proven to be false or even if she admits they are false at some future point she may not be prosecuted in civil or criminal courts for this action. Men accused of sexually related crimes may be immediately terminated from by their employers with no recourse to sue for wrongful discharge in these cases.”

A person with an ounce of common sense and awareness of human nature knows if you give any group of people a blank check to do a certain thing – that thing will be abused. Such an amendment which follows the proposed ideals of the MeToo movement would cause the 2 to 10 percent incidents of false rape and sexual assault allegations to sky rocket.

Imagine how many women would use this as black mail to get any position they wanted at a company? “If you don’t give me the promotion I will say you raped me or sexually assaulted me”. If a man goes to break up with woman she could say “I will say you raped me if you leave me”. When women get divorced they cold just blackmail their soon to be ex-husbands with false rape charges so they could take all their money and get full custody of the children. When women have consensual sex with men and are ashamed of their choices they can just re-frame it as rape. Just imagine the wicked abuses that could take place in such a system.

Better 100 Rapists Should Escape Than One Innocent Man Should Suffer

This brings us to the conclusion of this matter. On one side we have MeToo advocates arguing that men have been sexually assaulting women since the beginning of recorded history and now its time for men and the patriarchy to pay for its past and continuing abuses of women.

But you know what else has been occurring since the beginning of the human history? Murder, theft and all other types of non-sexual abuses of men against men, women against women and men against women. Human beings are and always have been sinful and wicked since the Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden.

The question is how we deal with the wrongs that people commit against one another. Should we throw out innocent until proven guilty for sexual assault crimes? The answer from the Bible is a resounding NO!

The Bible shows us that God is far more concerned with the innocent being falsely punished than the wicked escaping justice:
“15 One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.
16 If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong;
17 Then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days; 18 And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother;
19 Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you. 20 And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you.”
Deuteronomy 19:15-20 (KJV)

It would be absolutely Biblical to say that in God’s eyes it would be better that 100 rapists should escape justice than one innocent man should suffer by a false or uncorroborated accusation.

Look at what God says should be done to the one who brings a false accusation? They should get the same sentence that the one they falsely accused would have received.

There are many MeToo and other women’s rights advocates who would like to see our legal system get rid of prosecution or civil lawsuits for false rape claims by women. They say such mechanisms discourage women from coming forward with real rape claims. But as I have shown here from the Bible – our punishments for false rape claims don’t go far enough! Women who make false rape claims get sentenced to a tiny fraction of the time that the men they accused of rape would have received if they had been found guilty. We should follow God’s law in this and give the same sentence to women who falsely accuse men of rape as what the men would receive if they were convicted of rape.

What If It Were Your Father, Your Husband, Your Brother, Your Son?

Judge Brett Kavanagh, now thanks to God Justice Brett Kavanagh, made a statement that I believe will be long remembered in American history. He made this statement at the close of his opening remarks on September 27 while defending himself against the false rape allegations of Dr. Christine Blasely Ford.

“We live in a country devoted to due process and the rule of law. That means taking allegations seriously, but if the mere allegation, the mere assertion of an allegation, a refuted allegation from 36 years ago, is enough to destroy a person’s life and career, we will have abandoned the basic principles of fairness and due process that define our legal system in our country. I ask you to judge me by the standard that you would want applied to your father. Your husband. Your brother. Or your son.”

While others had previously made this contention against the MeToo movement’s assault on due process and the presumption of innocence – this was different. This was a national stage. It is estimated that nearly 20 million Americans watched this hearing and heard Brett Kavanagh’s words. To those in the MeToo movement it probably did little to move them to rethink their assault on due process and the presumption of innocent until proven guilty.

But what it did do is awaken millions of other Americans to the dangers that the MeToo movement poses to justice and due process in America. And the tired argument of Democrats and MeToo advocates that “this was not a court of law but just a job interview” did not hold water with millions of Americans who were infuriated at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh.

You can still destroy a man’s life with unproven accusations without ever trying him in a court of law or sending him to prison. One of the writers for CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”, Ariel Dumas, made this statement on twitter before making her account private after a huge backlash:

“Whatever happens, I’m just glad we ruined Brett Kavanaugh’s life”

In the last week, millions of Americans woke up to the reality that their fathers, their husbands, their brothers and their sons could have their lives ruined in the same way that Ariel Dumas was so happy about. Their careers and livelihoods could be destroyed by the MeToo movement and some could lose their freedom and be imprisoned for many years if the MeToo movement is successful in its assault on the American justice system, men and the patriarchy.

In article for Slate.com entitled “The Kavanaugh Hearings Have Women Fired Up … to Vote Republican” Ruth Graham writes:

“the Kavanaugh spectacle seems to have evaporated the Democrats’ enthusiasm edge, according to a poll conducted Monday by NPR, PBS NewsHour, and Marist. In July Democrats were likelier, by 10 percentage points, to say the November elections were “very important.” That gap has now narrowed to a statistical tie. “The result of the hearings, at least in the short run, is the Republican base was awakened,” Marist head Lee Miringoff told NPR.

…

Atlantic reporter Emma Green talked with about a dozen female conservative leaders across the country for a story this week that puts flesh on the Marist poll’s finding: that the Kavanaugh hearings have electrified conservative women too. “I’ve got women in my church who were not politically active at all who were incensed with this,” the chairwoman of the West Virginia Republican Party told Green. The Indiana state director for the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, Jodi Smith, told Green that “people in Indiana are angry.” In her view, the hearings are “one of the best things that could happen to us” as she looks forward to a hotly contested Senate election in the state in November.”

I can say that all but two liberal women amongst my extended relatives and friends thought the way Brett Kavanaugh was treated was truly “a national disgrace” as he stated in his hearing. And his line about would this be the standard that you would want your “your father. Your husband. Your brother. Or your son” judged by rings true for millions of women across the country.

A Final Word to Women Who Have Been Victims of Sexual Assault

I previously revealed here that my mother was the victim of rape by her own grandfather. I have also known other women personally in my life that were raped or otherwise sexually assaulted. I myself was molested by a 17-year-old boy at a church I attended when I was 14. But I would never compare what happened to me to what happened to my mother. It still gives me chills when I think of her account of what happened and the effect that she told me it had her relationship with my father years after it happened.

When I and millions of other Americans stand up for the rule of law, due process and the presumption of innocence this does not mean we care nothing for the true victims of sexual assault. But we cannot do evil that good may result. We cannot tear down the justice system, and destroy men’s lives in order to get justice for female victims of sexual assault.

Rape and other forms of sexual assault have existed as long as murder, theft and all other types of crimes have existed. We will no more eliminate rape and sexual assault than we will any of these other crimes. All we can do is try to protect ourselves against these crimes and when they do occur report them right away to the proper authorities with as much evidence as we can muster.

As Christians we know that a crucial way to help protect women from sexual assault or rape is to follow the rules that most societies had for their women for thousands of years. Women were not left alone with men who were not their male relatives. Now I know that some will immediately say that sometimes relatives molest their own. I could not agree more based on what happened to my mother on the part of her own grandfather.

But we must do our best to take all the precautions we can. We can’t say just because we can’t stop all rape and sexual assault that we should not take all the precautions we can. I lock my doors at night but that does not mean someone could not find another way into my home by breaking a window.

Finally, if you are a woman like my mother who was raped I am going to give you a piece of advice my mother had to learn. You have two choices. You can choose to allow the sexual assault or rape you experienced to distort your view of men and sex and cause you to want to tear down the entire justice system to get your revenge on men or the patriarchy. Or you can take a different path. You can choose to give your pain and hurt to Christ. You can choose to have Christ restore in you a healthy view of men, sex and marriage and a respect for the concept of innocent until proven guilty.
“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” – 1 John 5:4

You can either live your life as a victim or as victor, the choice is yours.