To My Sisters in Christ

 

Over the weekend the world was given the distasteful surprise of the now infamous recording of Presidential nominee Donald Trump bragging in the crudest terms about his adulterous sexual conquests. He even bragged about his success in groping women. Later he explained it away as nothing more than “locker room talk.” By now we have come to expect this sort of disgraceful behavior from Mr. Trump. 

 

However, what is even more disconcerting than Mr. Trump’s fond reminiscences of his lecherous behavior are the vigorous apologetics offered up by his “evangelical” supporters. They have explained away his words by appealing to the fact that the NBC recording was 11 years old (Trump was a carefree youth of 60 years at the time). They have even echoed Trump’s “locker room talk” explanation.

 

I have lived for almost 50 years and have never had a man brag to me about his adultery (Confess? Yes. Brag? No.) Certainly I have heard plenty of profanity and even some tales of sexual potency in and out of locker rooms. But I have never heard a man brag about groping a woman or describe anything that could be remotely understood as sexual assault.

 

What I want you, my sisters in Christ to know, is that there are many of us who find Trump’s words and behavior disgusting. Contrary to Ben Carson’s explanation this sort of talk is not how most men talk about women in their absence. We do not believe that the number of a man’s sexual conquests or his willingness to force himself upon a woman is the measure of manhood. Quite the opposite. For many of us the arrogant swagger and adulterous boastings of Trump are the negation of genuine manhood. He is a petulant child grasping for validation by bragging about his sexual prowess to strangers on a bus. 

 

I understand why many are reluctantly choosing to vote for Mr. Trump. Given the horrific prospects of a Hillary Clinton presidency I am even sympathetic with that choice. But the enthusiastic rallying around the man from some rather prominent members of the “religious right” is unconscionable. Indeed, the continued endorsements of Trump from men like Jerry Falwell Jr, Mike Huckabee, and Robert Jeffress have proved that the religious right are the new moral relativists. 

 

So vote for Trump if you believe you must but do not deceive yourself by believing that he is something that he is not. He is not a Republican. He is not conservative. He is a life-long “strongly pro-choice” liberal. He is not a friend of smaller government or lower taxes for the middle class. He is a crony capitalist who has benefited from cozy relationships with politicians of various stripes. He is an unprincipled pragmatist whose great ambition over the years seems to be nothing nobler than emblazoning his name upon as many products as possible.

 

* I hope no one will understand this post as an endorsement of Hillary Clinton. I believe she would be an utter disaster as President. She is manifestly corrupt and probably deserves to be indicted. Considering Bill Clinton’s history with women, the credible accusations against him of sexual assault, and Mrs. Clinton’s treatment of his victims, she has no claim of moral superiority over Donald Trump. Her position on abortion alone should disqualify her in the minds of Christians.