Also, I disagree strongly that ANY situation morally requires a spouse to divorce someone. There are some bright shining lines in the universe. One of them is, “you don’t touch someone without consent.” and another is, “people can consider marriage a sacred vow and stay in it no matter what if they want to without being judged.” That being said, I wouldn’t want a spouse who actively enables bad behavior to be entrusted with the public interest. I also wouldn’t want a spouse who is obviously stupid and a bad judge of character to be in office. But an innocent spouse fully aware of who their partner is and who has not helped him be a bad person is just fine in my book.
But there is no such concept as “moral obligation to divorce”.
This. It’s naive to assume that only harassers need to worry about the consequences of being accused of harassment. I think k9bfriender is right to fear that many male bosses will react poorly to the increased visibility of this issue. If a boss doesn’t hire any women to work closely with him then he won’t be accused of harassing them. And most bosses are still male, unfortunately.
Funny thing, I had a boss once who was a serial sexual harasser and he didn’t hire women because he was afraid of them “causing problems”. He only hired women he already knew who were “cool” or who were recommended by someone else. Exactly zero women could walk in the door, fill out an application, and get hired.
The answer isn’t to not hire women, of course. That exposes you to problems just as big. The best approach, IMO, is to keep work limited to professional relationships once you are in a supervisory position. Another thing which has many advantages aside from lower risk of stupid behavior at work is telecommuting.
One thing I’ve read male managers writing about is not wanting to be in meetings alone with women. I was kinda surprised at that because I can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve been alone in a meeting with another man! Meetings almost always involve multiple people and when someone has called just me into the office it’s been with the office door open or with another person there to be a witness. The only times I’ve been alone with my boss was to discuss something sensitive just between me and him, such as if I’m getting a raise of promotion, or there was an incident and he wants a witness account without others being there to bias my testimony. So I’m a bit confused about male managers regularly having females alone in their office for meetings.
There’s also no moral obligation to serve in any particular political position.
The issue is that if your marriage in combination with your political position creates a dynamic which causes people to be abused, then maybe you need to choose between one or the other. Even if you’re not “obviously stupid and a bad judge of character”, you might not be the right fit for this job.
The sheer number of the allegations alone is bad enough, but the fact that John Conyers has now been forced from office leaves Democrats with little choice but to push Franken out of the party as well. He could switch parties and become an independent out of spite, but that would probably enrage his supporters at home.
He’s got to resign. A lot of the allegations are pretty shaky, but the Democrats have got to put an end to drip drip drip and the both sides do it garbage being flung around on the news. The Democrats need that Alabama senate seat and also need no distractions when they’re trying to stir up tax bill opposition.
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DNC Chairman Tom Perez (on twitter): “Sen. Al Franken should step down. Everyone must share the responsibility of building a culture of trust and respect for women in every industry and workplace, and that includes our party.”
This is a done deal, I’m pretty damn sure. If Klobuchar comes out in favor of resignation, then it’s definitely done.
Looks like the party insider dude I talked to last week was right – this was building with internal party discussion, and now the consensus is that he has to go. Later than I’d like (he should have resigned immediately, and hopefully the party will be ready for the next asshole to be revealed), but better late than never. I want my party to boot gropers and sexual harassers. Especially when the other party tolerates and even welcomes them, even if the victims are children.
Franken dragged this out long enough that I don’t think even if he resigns tomorrow that it’ll be in time to save Doug Jones. Had he done it two weeks ago, perhaps that would have done it.
Good point, Alabama voters typically look to liberals in Minnesota for whom they should support. It’s probably Al Franken’s fault Alabamans will elect a child molestor to the U.S. Senate.
Anyone know how Minnesota laws work for resignations? If Franken resigns tomorrow and the governor picks a replacement, does that pick stand for election in 2018 and then re-election in 2020? Or does the governor pick a replacement to serve out the rest of Franken’s term?
Do we need to get the Hillary fork and stick it in Franken just to make certain? It’s hard to imagine the DNC chair would call for his resignation if it wasn’t already a done deal. I wonder if we’ll see a skit on the next SNL.
My parents were ecstatic with the resignation of Conyers, and look forward to the resignation of Franken. They say that this just proves that the democrats are sleazy scumbags.
If we feel as though we need to clean up the democratic party for the sake of the democratic party, that’s one thing. But expecting it to get a single republican to reassess their moral compass is unlikely.
If we need it, it’s in the dishwasher. I had a chicken Caesar for lunch and it was the only fork I could find. I’m not really sure how it ended up at my house anyway.