Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images Supreme Court nominee is due to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday along with Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexual assault when they were teenagers.

But some progressive Christians have pointed out that it’s hypocritical for the leaders who have long preached “family values” to respond this way to the allegations.

Kavanaugh’s first accuser, who goes by Christine Blasey professionally, is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. She has said Kavanaugh pinned her down, groped her and attempted to remove her clothing at a high school party in the early 1980s.

Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied the allegation.

Franklin Graham, son of the famed late preacher Billy Graham and a longtime Trump supporter, attempted to downplay the severity of Blasey’s claim. He told the Christian Broadcasting Network last week that the allegation is “not relevant” because of how much time has passed and because Kavanaugh was a teenager at the time.

“There’s a lot of things that I’ve done when I was a teenager that I certainly am ashamed of and not proud of,” Graham said in an interview last week. “People are up in arms over this like, ‘Oh, this is such a disaster.’ You’re talking about two teenagers 40 years ago. That has nothing to do with what we’re talking about today about this man being a judge on the Supreme Court.”

“And they call it sexual assault?” he added. “No, I don’t believe it.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, has said that, although he recognizes sexual abuse is a traumatic experience, Blasey’s story was “very, very suspect.”

Other evangelical leaders have outright mocked Blasey for waiting years before coming forward with the allegation ― even though it often takes years for victims to find the strength to speak publicly about their abuse. One conservative organization, the American Family Association, claimed Blasey’s charge didn’t meet the “biblical standard” of having two or three witnesses for the crime.

Over the past few days, several progressive Christians have taken to Twitter to point out that the evangelical leaders who are dismissing Blasey’s sexual abuse allegation are often the same conservative voices that rail against queer love and preach a purity culture that shames people for any kind of premarital sexual activity.

Conservative Christians often claim that their interpretation of the Christian sexual ethic is the only correct one ― delivered straight from heaven and unchanged for 2,000 years. But at the same time, some evangelicals appear willing to support powerful leaders who don’t subscribe to that ethic ― giving out “mulligans” for actions they would typically condemn as immoral.

“The same religious leaders who told me as a teenager that premarital sex was a grave sin that would ruin my life forever have declared that no one can fault a 17-year-old boy for a little attempted rape,” Christian author Rachel Held Evans tweeted on Sept. 19.

“They always said ‘the world’ would not understand our sexual ethic because ‘the darkness cannot comprehend the light,’” Evans continued. “Maybe the world just doesn’t get a sexual ethic in which being gay is a sin but chronic infidelity, sexual assault, & ‘pussy-grabbing’ are just guys being guys.”

Read on to see how other progressive Christians are calling out the hypocrisy of leaders who are dismissive of Blasey’s allegation.

When Christians who passionately oppose same-sex relationships on the basis of "traditional sexual morality" minimize the gravity of sexual assault, they don't just reveal their hypocrisy—they sully their credibility in any future discussions about sexual ethics, too. pic.twitter.com/ZRyZJlok0s — Matthew Vines (@VinesMatthew) September 17, 2018

I’m not sure what’s worse: all the men trying to tell women how they should react to being sexually assaulted by men or “the party of family values” telling young women that being sexually assaulted is a normal & acceptable part of high school.



Both? Can both we worse? — Zack Hunt (@ZaackHunt) September 24, 2018

Listen, if “sensible conservatives” don’t come out FULL FORCE against sexual assault, any overtures they make regarding caring for women in the abortion debate will ring hollow, and whatever moral high ground they think they have will disappear. — Nish Weiseth (@NishWeiseth) September 20, 2018

Also, I’m still confused as to why queer people having sex is V BAD, V SINFUL, but a straight man attempting to rape someone “shouldn’t impact his SUPREME COURT NOMINATION.”



Straight Christians are WILD EVERYONE. — Jonah Ven, Queer High Mage 李明恩 (@jonah_ven) September 24, 2018

The same world view that demonizes the supposed homosexuality of the Sodomites but doesn’t bat an eye at Lot having sex with both his daughters is the same that condemns a woman for speaking about her rape but confirms the man who raped her. — Grayson Hester (@grayson_hester) September 24, 2018

"After having screamed incessantly for years about what goes on in people's bedrooms and in public bathrooms—these "family values Christians" have had to ignore serial adultery, porn star affairs, Playmate payoffs, and assault allegations."https://t.co/BqEiFnvDZR — John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) September 25, 2018

“Boys can’t help themselves” Purity culture = Rape culture. https://t.co/clU9VSAWi4 — Nadia Bolz-Weber (@Sarcasticluther) September 20, 2018