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My sister recently joined a Facebook conversation which she shared with me concerning Brett Kavanaugh’s impending appointment to the Supreme Court. The original poster stated that while he might believe Kavanaugh sexually assaulted a 15-year-old “woman,” he never-the-less asked, “at what point do our actions committed as a teenager or child become the way we are defined as an adult 40 or 50 years later?” It echoes a similar conversation echoed by a tweet from Rod Dreher, a writer for the American Conservative, in which he argues, “I do not understand why the loutish drunken behavior of a 17-year-old high school boy has anything to tell us about the character of a 53-year-old judge.” It seems a good time to explore the meaning of forgiveness beyond the political expediency and rhetoric of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.
Forgiveness is not the granting of a pardon, but rather the casting of a stone. It is an act of letting go. Forgiveness is so comprehensively personal that it does not require the victim to share that forgiveness with the abuser. But if the victim does share it, which is their prerogative, forgiveness becomes a dialog. And that dialog requires not only the strength of the person who offers it, but the grace of contrition from the person who would receive it. It cannot be received by one who is in denial; it demands repentance and accountability on the part of the person accepting it. And forgiveness is not a default state to which implacability expires to after 35 years.
Forgiveness is not absolution nor does it annul guilt or responsibility. It is not a statement that what happened was okay, nor that time has mitigated the crime. Forgiveness instead is a powerful personal statement that attests to one thing above all: the victim will no longer carry the anger he or she was asked to carry. It is a very personal declaration of independence.
In the exchange that my sister had, forgiveness was suggested as simple palliation for the indiscretions of impetuous youth. In an almost breathtaking victim-blaming turn, the explanation implied that the inability to forgive carried greater pertinence than the crime of 35 years ago, and that it demonstrated intolerance toward the casual indiscretions of human nature. While forgiveness for some things can be simple, and indeed speaks highly to the character and strength of those who express it, it is different when profound personal violation is the subject. Sexual assault victims – especially children and adolescent youth – carry deep shame and often blame themselves. While counter-intuitive, self-blame can validate integrity. Blame implies responsibility, and responsibility, in turn, implies some measure of control. It can be easier to survive an assault by concluding a failure to exercise control rather than admitting there was no control at all. It is a way for the victim to move forward under the illusion that if they do something differently, it cannot happen again.
Forgiveness on the part of a sexual assault victim is not a Pollyanna endeavor. It often is realized only after a long journey which can take years, decades – even a lifetime. To the victims, it means stepping out from under the dark shroud of secrecy and shame that never should have been theirs to carry in the first place. And to the abusers, it is not a pardon but a reckoning – a challenge for them to dare look directly into the eyes staring back through the mirror and squarely face who they were and who they are with complete honesty. I’ve often thought that as difficult as true forgiveness is for the victim, it has to be more difficult for the abuser. But in either case, to ascribe forgiveness as simply forgetting or minimizing a “youthful indiscretion” is beyond absurd. It is uninformed and insensitive. I know.
When I was twelve, I knew the difference between an indiscretion and a crime. I did not have to be taught as a prepubescent child that rape was wrong. I may have had no concept of what sexual relations were about, much less the aberration of sexual assault, but I knew almost instinctively that they were wholly and entirely inappropriate for children my age to be asked to engage in. I know that I possessed an innate sense of right and wrong at that young age, and along with it a burgeoning sense of what personal integrity was and what defined the most essential building blocks of respectable manhood I was growing up into. So I knew that the serial molester in our neighborhood, who was almost three years older than me, engaged in activity quite beyond the casual imprudence of impetuous youth. I knew it to the point of tears when I was thirteen and confessed to my mother what he was doing to me and some of the young girls in our neighborhood. I knew it when I was a Bar Mitzvah boy, accepting the mantle of moral ethics that marked my responsibility as an adult to family and community. I knew it at 14 when I recited by memory the Scout Oath and the twelve points of the Scout Law that defined my accountability to good behavior and judgment and defined what being a good citizen meant. And I certainly knew it at 17, the age Brett Kavanaugh was when, as a prep school upperclassman, he purportedly forced himself physically on a freshman girl in a rape attempt so violent that she feared she might not survive. There are some things in this world that do not need to be taught – things that are so intrinsic to our moral fiber that they define a line most of us could never imagine crossing. Ever.
At 17, society measures and evaluates our character and integrity. We are applying to colleges and universities, petitioning for internships, building resumes and seeking summer jobs. We wear our school colors at athletic events where sportsmanship and teamwork are expected exemplars. We are interviewed by schools and jobsites, and build references in the process to vouch for our character. We are considered old enough to face the personal dangers and responsibilities involved in serving and protecting our nation, and honor has marked many lives that did not make it far past the age of 17. To forgive attempted rape at that age as an indiscretion makes as much sense as the hypothetical candor in which, upon revealing during any of the processes above that we engaged in sexual assault, it would be overlooked as a mere injudicious behavior. Or perhaps we would be told to reapply in 30 years after some implied statute of limitations effectively resets our character.
There are, however, some people who will still claim a defense for Brett Kavanaugh that “boys will be boys.” They will speak of the youth as if he was a separate person rather than the foundation of the adult. I admit I will never understand such a perspective. The boundaries of decency that have matured steadily upon the lessons I learned as a child will never allow me to.
As the people we have chosen to represent us rush to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, they are demonstrating a decided aversion at looking too closely. It is a practiced art. Victims of abuse are often invisible, submerged to more powerful interests. To understand this phenomenon, one might study the decisions to shuffle abusive priests in various Archdioceses, notably Boston and Philadelphia. One might ask the Boy Scouts how they managed to keep terrible secrets in the ranks of leadership for decades, or question why the administrative overhead of the Penn State Football machinery under Joe Paterno put their interests above those of the victims when they were alerted to what was happening to children in the football team’s showers. In fact, it seems that anywhere there are victims whose story may disrupt more powerful institutional interests, heads turn. So it is perhaps not surprising to see a similar phenomenon at work as the promotion of this SCOTUS nomination takes precedence over due prudence. The irony is that the promotion of a champion to conservative principles requires abject abandonment of the very core principles they purport to champion.
While the turning of heads is a practiced art, accountability seems to be a lost one. When it falls short, we those heads turn toward the victim, but not in understanding. Instead, those heads ask the victim to just have a little understanding for the poor rapists and would-be rapists who perhaps took a little longer than the rest of us to find their ethical footing.
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