What Moral Highgound?

I’ll be honest: I can’t stop thinking about the Al Franken saga. Since this story broke it has consumed more of my brain and heart space than I can reasonably explain. But today I’m consumed mostly with disappointment in the Democrats for how they handled this. The lost opportunity AND the important lessons we need to learn. Quickly.

Regarding the lost opportunity:

From the time of the first accusation, Franken did his best to model a thoughtful, sympathetic reaction to an accusation. His reaction was grounded in the morals he has demonstrated throughout his career as a public servant. He took time to LISTEN to his accuser. He apologized thoughtfully and owned, without qualification, the discomfort he unwittingly caused her.

He was modeling behavior for men who want to do better. And as twisted as this is (everything is upside down these days) I genuinely felt some measure of gratitude for the fact that it was him because of how he was handling it, and it seemed like an opportunity for a healthy conversation, modeled by a respected public figure, at a critically important moment.

Franken’s respectful, humble and apologetic response to being accused was culturally important to the #metoo movement.

The fact is that we do not have good role models for a large segment of the population at this moment: for good men and women who have made choices which may have put others in positions of discomfort or pain. Franken handled being accused with respect, dignity and kindness. A worthy example to follow in a moment severely deprived of these things.

It is also worth nothing that as a citizen of this country, and especially when considering the non-criminal nature of these accusations, Franken deserved due process.

To be clear: none of the things for which he is accused are illegal. Unlike Roy Moore, Donald Trump or any of the dozens of cases that have captured our national attention in the past few weeks, he is not accused of stalking or seducing teenage girls, or of rape, or of using his position of power to demand sexual favors. Nor is he guilty of “grabbing someone by the pussy.” He’s accused of a consensual kiss while volunteering on a USO tour, a less than tasteful photo taken when he was a comedian, and a few cases where women asked to pose for photos with him at campaign events and the placement of his hand made them uncomfortable. I’m adding these details because I keep hearing that he’s “just as bad” as the others, but in fact this is a critically dangerous assumption. Especially when a large portion of us aren’t new-junkies and many are simply not aware of the nature of the actual accusations in this case. They are vitally important for context. And I’d like to believe that facts still matter more than public opinion.

Again, this is complicated.

I’ll admit I started out with a strong “believe all women” bias. But this has made me realize that if we’re not going to blow this, we need to start with a more just (yet still groundbreaking) stance of, “LISTEN to all women.” Absolutely listen. To all women.

And we need to LISTEN to the nature and severity of the accusations.

Next, we need to outline appropriate consequences for different scales of sexual behaviors that are not yet illegal. Putting an arm around a constituent who wants to pose with you for a photo and cupping her waist is not currently a crime. There are good reasons behind the outlines we’ve established in our judicial system which treat a rolling stop sign violation differently than involuntary vehicular manslaughter while under the influence.

We can and must figure this out. Carefully.

What women need is RESPECT and EQUALITY. Women deserve to be listened to and HEARD. And then they deserve the same manner of due process that is supposed to be afforded to every citizen. Something that has been pathetically denied to them in sexual harassment and abuse cases until this critical #metoo moment. I’m thrilled women are being heard and consequences are being felt.

But if this is going to last beyond a “moment” and become a lasting cultural shift we must proceed with caution.

What women do NOT need is a separation from the law.

Being placed on a pedestal above the law at the explicit expense of someone else’s due process is a highly dangerous precedent to set. A precedent that is not only unethical but could serve to plant the seeds for a wicked backlash, ironically, against the very values and equal status of women that this powerful movement was just starting to achieve.

And so I’m left with this final thought. It’s unclear to me where the moral high ground exists in bullying someone out of his or her job based on claims that fall well within the law, and prior to any modicum of due process. Especially when that person was cooperating in an ethics investigation. An ethics investigation that he requested. Another significant point.

Where are the morals in that? Last time I checked, due process was one of the foundational pillars of our justice system. It is one of our most quintessential American values.

And yet I keep hearing that echoing verse. That somehow in bullying Franken out of his Senate seat, this places Democrats on “higher moral ground.”

Here’s my problem with that: Humans are fallible. All of us. But we are also capable of learning from our mistakes. It’s written in our DNA as a tool for survival. We make mistakes and we learn if we want to survive. I do not expect perfection in my friends or my politicians. I do expect respect, honesty and the highly moral act of admitting a mistake and offering an apology when appropriate.

If someone is accused of having made someone uncomfortable and his reaction is to apologize thoughtfully, in public (and again in a private directly to his accuser), if she accepts his apology and he asks for an investigation anyway into his own behavior… to my mind that IS the most explicit definition of moral high ground.

And how did we reward this example of humility and apology? We didn’t. We punished it.

Punishing a respectful and apologetic response by whipping up fury in the court of public opinion without allowing due process to be followed does not make you morally superior. It makes you a bully who has used your power to force something on someone. Or a group of bullies.

How ironic.

Franken was providing a desperately needed framework for how to act when accused of misconduct. His example was one of humility, respect and integrity.

The powerful example he was setting has now been obliterated.

And sadly, the tangible takeaways couldn’t be less moral:

• If you lie and deny enthusiastically enough, you get to keep your job.
• If you acknowledge, listen with respect and apologize (even if you are framed or innocent, by the way, that won’t matter), you’ll get bullied, tarnished and thrown to the wolves.

Is that really the lesson we want to teach our children?

Because I’m still doing my best to teach my son to value honesty, compassion, integrity, ownership of failure, and respect for others.

I realize that critical thinking, especially when nuance is required, is not something a mob does well. Yet I will continue to hope that we can learn to navigate these incredibly complicated situations with a bit more sensitivity and not shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot over and over.

The progress of this incredibly important moment is too important.