Minnesota outlawed marital rape under all circumstances this month, highlighting the legal wiggle room that still surrounds this issue in America. Marital rape has technically been illegal in all 50 states since 1993, but in many parts of the country, the laws that enforce this crime still come with harmful, present day exceptions. Jenny Neeson, the woman who successfully campaigned to change the law in Minnesota, knows firsthand the dire consequences these exceptions can have.

According to an interview with NPR, when Neeson was in the midst of getting a divorce, she made a perverse discovery. While going through her husband’s computer, she found four videos of him raping her while she lay drugged and unconscious. To add to her horror, in one video, her four-year old son is lying next to her in bed.

Neeson went to the police with this clear evidence of criminal activity, but not even this concrete proof was enough to charge her husband with sexual assault. In fact, her husband’s attorney found a legal loophole that made convicting him of any sex crime impossible. This loophole came as a great shock to everyone involved, with Neeson saying, “the judge didn’t know that this law existed” and neither did the county attorney’s office.

It turned out that Minnesota’s criminalization of marital rape came with a costly exception known as “the voluntary relationship defense for criminal sexual conduct crimes.” This now overturned defense stated that if the victim and the accused lived together and were in “an ongoing voluntary sexual relationship at the time of the alleged offense” or were legally wed without living apart and having “filed for separation,” the accused had not committed a sex crime.

Armed with this defense, Neeson’s husband was only convicted of invasion of privacy, resulting in a 45 day jail sentence of which he served less than 30 days. It didn’t even matter that Neeson was drugged, because as Minnesota state Rep. Zach Stephenson noted in dismay after reviewing the law, “sure enough there is an exception for drugging or having sex with someone mentally incapacitated if they’re married.”

It’s important to realize that Neeson probably wasn’t the first victim to be deprived justice because of this loophole. According to an estimate by the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission, “repealing [this] exception will result in seven additional convictions each year.”

There’s no way of knowing if anymore victims will be denied an avenue for justice between the bill’s signing on May 2nd and when it goes into effect on July 1st. There’s no way of knowing how many sexual assault survivors will never get the legal recourse they deserve if they choose to come forward. After all, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that almost “9% of women and 0.8% of men report having been raped by an intimate partner.” The percentage of women who have been raped during marriage is even higher, falling between 10% and 14%.

I personally have been raped by an intimate partner, and that’s hard to admit. There are still so many emotions attached to that night that I don’t even want to acknowledge the existence of. Even though it happened years ago and that abusive relationship is over now, I still have nightmares sometimes about being back in the house that it happened in. I still remember screaming in that house, a house full of men, and not having a single one of my then boyfriend’s roommates even come and knock on the door. I’ll never set foot in that house again. I won’t even set foot in the city that house is in.

The truth is, I never predicted myself being in such a difficult situation when the relationship began, but that’s how it goes for everyone. There are bigger power dynamics at play that take months and years to build that allow these criminal acts to happen. That’s why it’s important for survivors to know the law is on their side, whether or not they decide to pursue a case. There’s a vital legitimacy that comes from your state of residence stepping up and recognizing that yes, what happened to you was wrong, and our legislature stands by you, not the person who trespassed against you.

We can’t criminalize the past. We can only hold people to the standard we set in the present. That’s why it matters that we’ve made it all the way to 2019 without this law being overturned. The news of this bill’s passing deserves to be celebrated but not without a solemn thought for the women and men it didn’t and can’t protect.

Despite Minnesota having the only split legislature in the country, this bill passed with bipartisan support. This might not feel shocking in the face of such a noncontroversial issue, but unfortunately, closing loopholes in marital rape laws still isn’t universally agreed on. According to the national nonprofit Aequitas, “17 states still maintain some form of the exemption for spouses who rape partners when they are drugged or otherwise incapacitated.” The political magazine GOVERNING reports that there are still twelve states that have “a loophole that legalizes marital rape” in some form.

One of these states is Maryland, where a bill died this March attempting to overturn its marital rape exceptions. The Chicago Tribune detailed some of the congressional arguments against passing the bill, including a male lawmaker who wondered aloud if a spouse could be charged for “smacking the other’s behind” in the midst of an argument.

Del. Frank Conaway Jr. wanted to know, “If your religion believes if you’re married, two are as one body, then what happens? Can you get a religious exemption?” Lisae Jordan, executive director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, had a particularly apt answer to this query, replying that “No, I would actually say that the First Amendment would prevent the state from getting entangled in that sort of judgment. So you would have to rely on your faith and your commitment to that to not bring those charges. But that’s no place for the General Assembly.”

She’s right that faith has no place in our government. Since no belief or lack of belief can be favored over another, religious freedom in America is also supposed to protect every citizens’ freedom from religion. However, separation of church and state often doesn’t happen, so this issue is worth examining from a religious perspective if religious freedom is going to be used as an argument against it. At the end of the day, I don’t care what your religion is. I care how you apply it.

The belief that Conaway references of two bodies as one is a Christian belief, and it appears in the Bible more than once. In the Old Testament, Genesis 2:24 says, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh,” and in the New Testament, Matthew 19:6 says, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Conaway doesn’t officially report his religion on the Maryland state legislature website, but he is the author of the book “Baptist Gnostic Christian Eubonic Kundalinion Spiritual Ki Do Hermeneutic Metaphysics: The Word: Hermeneutics,” so he probably identifies as some form of Baptist. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, only 49% of Maryland state representatives reported their religious standing, and of the 49% who did, 41% identified as some form of Christian. Nationwide, 42% of state legislators abstained from reporting their religious standing, 56% reported being some form of Christian, and only 2% reported being non-Christian.

If the state legislators who abstained from reporting their religious affiliation or their lack thereof reflect the national level, then most of them are probably Christian as well. According to the Pew Research Center, in America’s current Congress, 88.2% of members report being some form of Christian, while only one person identifies as religiously unaffiliated, “making the share of ‘nones’ in Congress 0.2%” despite the fact that “in the general public, 23% say they are atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular.’” Due to this general over representation, Christian ideologies generally come from a place of power in America’s government, so it makes the most sense to examine marital rape through a Christian lens.

Del. Frank Conaway Jr.’s religious line of questioning in particular brought to mind a social commentary video I’d seen recently by ex-Mormon YouTuber, Jimmy Snow. His video, “Transformed Wife Believes Wives Should ‘Put Out’ When They Don’t Want To” tackles the toxic mindset surrounding marital rape in some Christian ideologies. In it, Snow is responding to another Youtuber named Lori Alexander who is the Christian woman behind The Transformed Wife channel.

Her video, “Should Wives Have Sex with Their Husbands When They Don’t Feel Like It,” attempts to justify a man not getting his wife’s direct or implicit consent before initiating sex. Commentator Snow hits the nail right on the head when he reacts to this title by saying, “The answer to this question is no. This video should have taken 3 seconds. It should have been fade in, nope, and fade out.” Unfortunately, Alexander goes into more detail than that, and the story she uses to demonstrate her justification is eerily reminiscent of what happened to Jenny Neeson.

She says, “a woman wrote me and asked me if her husband had raped her because she had told him she didn’t want to have sex, and when she woke up in the middle of the night, he was having sex with her.” In reply, Alexander asks this woman, “Well do you feel like you need to call the police and have them locked in jail because… true rape is when you’re assaulted against your will by some stranger, and you feel like he’s worthy of being put in prison.”

The woman replied that she didn’t feel the need to call the police, but that doesn’t change the fact that she was raped. She may not want to bring charges, but she still directly withdrew her consent, and the boundaries of her body were violated in spite of that.

Alexander attempts to justify this violation by saying, “In fact, my husband was telling me sometimes a man just, you know, in the middle of the night, there’s a woman, their wife, laying next to them, and they just start wanting to have sex with them,” but this is not a valid justification. This pushes the harmful rhetoric that men don’t have any control over their actions, and this debasement of men harms both women and men.

Alexander also argues that women should have sex with their husbands when they don’t want to because there are so many “things that we do in life that we don’t feel like doing,” so “how come sex is this sacred cow to most women?” Of course, sex is sacred to a lot of Christian women simply because they are told that it is. Snow points this out by saying that in regards to sex, women are told that “You can only have it with one person ever. You have to save yourself for marriage, that you have to keep yourself pure,” therefore endowing this act with an “incredible significance.”

Focus on the Family, a global Christian ministry, points out that in regards to the Bible commanding its followers to wait until marriage to have sex, “You won’t find a verse that says ‘Thou shalt wait, because it’s better in marriage.’” Instead, there are just a lot of verses that say Christians must abstain from sexual immorality. The most overt it gets is probably in 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 which insinuates that sex is reserved for marriage through Paul the Apostle saying, “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

Alexander does have a more direct biblical leg to stand on when it comes to telling women they have to have sex with their husbands once they are married though. To back this stance up, 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 is most often cited, which says, “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

If you Google “What does the Bible say about marital rape,” the first three search results that come up grapple with what 1 Corinthians has to say. These results come from the Christian websites Got Questions, CBE International, and Compelling Truth, and they all claim that 1 Corinthians doesn’t support marital rape because other outside verses disagree with this interpretation. Got Questions cites Colossians 3:19 as a verse that directly opposes this interpretation since it says, “Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.”

It’s important to note, however, that the verse directly before this says, “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” This establishment of patriarchal hierarchy is a common theme when it comes to husbands being commanded to love their wives. It can also be seen in 1 Peter 3:7, which says, “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.”

These Christian websites also point out that 1 Corinthians commands men to give their wives their bodies too, therefore enforcing a progressive mutuality, but this doesn’t negate the fact that if either party is to stop having sex and fulfilling their marital duties, they must both agree to this abstinence, and they must not abstain from sex for too long.

The fifth Google result for the search “What does the Bible say about marital rape” comes from a website called Biblical Gender Roles. It directly refutes what these other Christian websites have to say, taking the stance that “Forced sex within marriage by a husband toward his wife is not in and of itself a sin.” Even though this stance is disgusting, this website has Bible verses that can back up its interpretation of 1 Corinthians as well, such as Proverbs 5:18-19 which says, “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer — may her breasts satisfy you always.” They insist that the word “always” here means all the time, without the ability to be revoked.

This textual analysis isn’t to say that I want the Bible to support marital rape. Since it is a guiding text for so many people and so many Americans, that’s the complete opposite of what I want. I grew up Catholic. Many of my loved ones and friends are still Christians, and I want their holy book to protect them. It makes me incredibly mad that, in so many words, it doesn’t necessarily do that.

If you Google “What does the Bible say about sex,” the third result you’ll find is an article called “5 Surprising Things That the Bible Says about Sex” from The Gospel Coalition Canada. This website espouses the same verses from 1 Corinthians, claiming that its ideas are revolutionary since husbands are also told that they “owe” their wives sex.

They claim that “Young couples nowadays are often told that they should only have sex when both parties desire it — however, the Bible says that sex should be given in a marriage whenever either party desires it.” They frame this statement like a biblical fun fact, but it enforces a terrifying, toxic mindset of entitlement that harms both women and men alike. When it comes to Christianity, just like with the rest of America, marital rape isn’t a cut and dry issue. It should be, but somehow, it’s 2019, and it isn’t.

I’m not trying to hold all Christians accountable for what only some members of their faith believe, but it is important that all Christians recognize that purely from a textual standpoint, the Bible can be used to support multiple stances on marital rape. This means that America can’t rely on the religious affiliation of the majority to prevent marital rape from happening. We still desperately need all of our country’s marital rape exceptions to be outlawed. This is the only way we can protect all of our citizens and establish a universal morality that fits the modern times we live in. It’s what we all deserve, Christian or not.