Zealot makes human trafficking a talking point
You’d think by now that politicians who try to burnish their credentials with appeals to biblical morality would learn to do so in ways that do not make laughingstocks of themselves and their purported biblical morality.
Consider the case of Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, who recently claimed that the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s, and the “anything goes” culture pushed by “Hollywood” and “cultural elites,” is responsible for the scourge of human trafficking.
How is it that a candidate for high office can actually believe the commerce in women and children as sexual chattel — a trade that has certainly abided as long as human civilization — has somehow been facilitated by a movement that gained women more rights over their own wombs and livelihoods?
“We have a human trafficking crisis in our state and in this city and in our country because people are willing to purchase women, young women, and treat them like commodities,” Hawley said in a taped speech given in December at an event in Kansas City hosted by the Missouri arm of the American Renewal Project, which reaches out to evangelicals, blending messages of faith with politics. “There is a market for it. Why is there? Because our culture has completely lost its way. The sexual revolution has led to exploitation of women on a scale that we would never have imagined, never have imagined.”
How long will we have to hear this old song and dance? It gets updated for the times, of course. Women can swipe left or right and chose a date or even a sexual partner nowadays ... ain’t it awful? Maybe, but this is not a cause of human trafficking, aka slavery.
It has nothing to do with current dating norms or the fact that it is far more acceptable in society for a woman to have a child out of wedlock — or even the many rights that LGBTQ people have gained.
Moreover, Hawley’s argument crosses the line into blaming victims for their plight.
The tape of Hawley’s comments is making the rounds now, two months after the speech, because it ignites his foes. He is widely expected to be the GOP challenger to U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill in November.
Hawley has gained the blessing of President Donald Trump — which is interesting for a candidate playing the godliness game to the hilt. Trump’s own sexual attitudes and dalliances tend to undercut the holy and chaste party line.
Clearly, when he made his comments Hawley thought he was on safe turf, among like-minded Christian conservatives.
The disgrace is that this episode twisted a real and serious public policy issue, one that both Hawley and McCaskill have taken on within their political careers.
McCaskill is to be credited for her leadership in the bipartisan takedown of Backpage.com, which became a marketplace for pimps and others.
As attorney general, Hawley launched investigations of Backpage and others, no doubt intent on matching McCaskill’s solid credentials.
In other words, Hawley knows better than to demagogue this issue.
Human trafficking is a complicated, international issue that robs people of their freedom.
And its victims deserve better than to become fodder for the religious right’s idiotic culture wars.