Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska held back tears Wednesday while discussing the horrors of sexual assault against women and the detriment associated with the #MeToo movement becoming a political tool.
“I’ve had two dear, dear friends who’ve been raped, and it is an act from the pit of hell,” Sasse said on the Senate floor. “People, men and women, are created in the image of God. … Sexuality is a deep and precious gift. It is an intimacy. It is a oneness that is to be shared and given, never taken. Sex is big, not small, and you don’t get to decide it for someone else.”
The Nebraska senator criticized the body politic for using women’s pain “as a political football” and expressed his belief in a widespread legacy of sexual assault, at least in part due to American’s lacking a cohesive set of sexual ethics.
“Far too often many girls and women have been told that they’re meat,” Sasse said. “They’ve been told this in word and in deed, that they’re parts to be consumed, rather than God’s children to be cherished and respected and be partnered with.”
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Referring to the #MeToo movement as “complicated”, Sasse defended it’s overall importance. (RELATED: Mitch McConnell Throws Down The Gauntlet: ‘We Will Not Be Intimidated’)
“We must not give back important ground in this movement by authorizing this media circus to stand in for generations of stories of tragic pain,” Sasse continued. “No matter how much cable news screams this, it would be an egregious offense against the cause of women to call this one up or down vote a proxy for the validation and validity of claims of sexual violence.”
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