Justice vs. Vengeance: How the #Me Too Movement Blurred the Two

In 2017, one news story after another seemed to carry the account of another high profile man accused of sexual misconduct. One message kept coming through from the victims: sincere apologies are not enough; we will make you pay and pay dearly for what you did to us. That’s understandable in cases of rape or physical assault including grabbing, groping, exhibitionism, or soliciting sex. But every small infraction a man could possibly commit physically or verbally is now cause for totally ruining his life, including his career, marriage, and future. The #Me Too movement became more than just an effort to obtain justice for women and men victims hurt by serious sex crimes. It became a movement that sought to not only improve the cultural environment, especially in the workplace, but to change our whole culture’s attitude toward human sexuality.

Questions about this arose from men like myself who know they have not always behaved in a perfect manner toward women. Likewise, our wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters had questions of their own concerning who was really behind this whole movement. A key question that came to me as I listened to all the stories about sexual misconduct by men was: “Do these women who have allegedly been violated desire to see true justice or vengeance? There is a distinct difference between the two, and I’m not sure the #Me Too movement made that distinction.

Let me illustrate the difference by pulling one of the cases from headlines: Charlie Rose. No matter what many might think of him, Rose earned himself the reputation as an old-school, hard-nosed journalist unafraid to ask the tough questions of everyone he interviewed, regardless of which political party, company, or organization they represented. That’s what good journalists do.

Mr. Rose also earned the reputation of being a classic ladies’ man, the quintessential cool, smooth, suave, debonair British gentleman who could make women’s hearts flutter just by walking into a room. Unfortunately, many of those women learned that he was really a dirty old man. His sexual antics, as reported by women hired by him for his own news documentary program, as well as those who worked with him at CBS, caused him to have his program yanked off the air and fired by CBS and PBS. That leads to the question, Will true justice be served in the case of Charlie Rose and his alleged victims? The jury is still out on that, because justice involves both the victim and the perpetrator.

Let me answer that this way. There is a threefold purpose to true justice in the case of the perpetrator: 1) Conviction for and admission of guilt for wrongdoing; 2) correcting the behavior and attitudes of the perpetrator as they repent of their wrongdoing and determine to turn away from it, and 3) restitution to the victim, if applicable, or the sincere seeking of forgiveness.

This in turn, means that true justice, if it is to be realized completely, requires something from the victim: forgiveness. It is only when we choose to forgive someone wrong they’ve done to us, that we ourselves are released from the control of that hurt. If we continue to hold onto that hurt and refuse to forgive, especially if the wrongdoer has repented, then that can grow into bitterness that eventually eats up the victim, while the perpetrator may still find peace and restoration through other means. The ultimate goals of true justice are healing and redemption: healing for the victim; redemption for the perpetrator.

This brings us back to the matter of what the women of the # Me Too movement are really seeking. In the case of Charlie Rose and the women he hurt, the question that has to be asked is, Does anybody care enough about Charlie Rose, (not the journalist, the person), to find out what led him down the slippery slope into sexual misconduct, in order to possibly help him to take ownership over his actions, confess, and repent of them, and allow others to walk and talk with him through the process of repentance and restoration? Does anybody care enough about him to see him become a changed man, or is the desire of his victims and the #Me Too people to see him spend the rest of his life, isolated, broken, and bitter, dying a lonely and painful death, and then rotting in hell? If their desire is truly for the former, then that is seeking justice. If it’s the latter, then that’s merely a desire for vengeance.

Vengeance, in contrast to justice, has just two objectives: punish and destroy. It seeks to inflict as much misery on wrongdoers as possible, and ultimately, to see them completely destroyed as persons, and not just removed from positions of authority. According to the Bible, vengeance is only properly meted out by God, and He only does so, when people are totally unrepentant and determined to do evil to others. (Heb. 10:30) When people seek vengeance against those who violate them, it forces their enemies to fight back for their very lives and souls, not just their reputations, which can eventually lead to violence and bloodshed.

This brings me back to the original questions raised here: Who is really behind this #Me Too movement, and what is their real agenda? If it is to seek true justice for victims of sexual abuse by changing the culture that lends itself to abuse by in turn, changing the attitudes and behavior of abusers, then this is a badly needed movement that will continue to be needed to combat sexual misconduct, in workplaces especially. If however, this movement focuses on the total destruction of certain people in order to promote another political agenda, that will most certainly lead to a backlash, perhaps even a violent one. What I mean is this: I have a hard time believing that all these women who brought all these accusations against all these men really want to see the men completely destroyed, with careers ruined and marriages and families ripped apart.

What I’m more inclined to believe is that this #Me Too movement may have been instigated by militant gay rights activists, using the New York Times and Washington Post to propagate their stories of sexual abuse. Their purpose is to discredit heterosexuality itself, using all these cases as a way of presenting the idea that homosexuality is much preferred over being straight, with heterosexuality being abnormal, inherently exploitative of women, unnatural, and undesirable. This ties in with the argument made increasingly by gay rights activists that gay people are the most evolved of all, and that all people should move away from hetero-sexuality and become gay. What better way to push this propaganda for the gay lifestyle than to daily mention more and more cases of sexual misconduct by men against women!

The fact that any cases of gay men in positions of power who get accused of molesting boys are quickly squelched by the media is further proof of an effort to paint gay as beautiful and most desirable, and straight as sick and totally undesirable. I’ve had enough run-ins with militant gays to know this could well be their latest tactic to force their agenda of making the gay lifestyle totally unquestionable, irrefutable, and irresistible. But there’s something the gay community and their supporters do not recognize. God is still on His throne. He hasn’t changed, and He hasn’t rewritten His Word, the Bible. He will have the final word on human sexuality, guaranteed. That will be the ultimate justice for those who have faithfully followed Him through Jesus Christ.