OK, so we're going there, fine.

Ed Murray did more for the LGBT community than anyone else in state history through decades of incredibly complex, difficult, political and legislative work. He used his political power and fundraising prowess to help those of us who've always been attacked, discriminated against, and marginalized. This is why some of us were willing to give him a chance to explain. I want the truth to come out no matter what it is, and I'd been looking forward to reading testimony under oath that would've help uncover that.

Roy Moore has spent a lifetime attacking anyone with less political and financial power than himself. He is a brutal theocratic bully that has announced that he personally speaks for gawd and uses his religion and his office as weapons against GLBT people, women, and people of color. Plenty of recent history has shown that people like Moore are the vilest hypocrites with the most to hide.

To say that these situations are the same is really false equivalency at its most obtuse and pernicious. One man spent his life and career helping others, while the other spent his life and career tearing us down. Both indeed may be guilty, however it seems obvious why Murray had more earned good will than Moore.

@1 "One man spent his life and career helping others." How can you say that about someone who five separate men have accused of sexually abusing them as teens? According to them, their lives were shattered. This is rape culture in a nutshell.

@1 "But Harvey Weinstein made really great movies." "But Woody Allen is a genius." "But Bill Cosby helped black youth." "But... " Rape is rape is rape is rape.

@3: Spot on, Sydney--rape is rape is RAPE and cannot be socially acceptable in our society. Period. Fuck all bullies and pigs who openly deny it. Prick control NOW!

@ 2,

OK, Murray helped me. He worked tirelessly to pass legislation that protects me from discrimination and allowed me to get married and recognize my human rights among other things. Noting that there are fundamental differences between Murray and Moore as an explanation of why some of us were willing to give Murray the benefit of the doubt is not promoting rape culture. I wouldn't denigrate or defame the accusers, and I want these allegations handled by trained legal and psychological professionals rather than an internet lynch mob. Is that promoting rape culture?

These are difficult situations and conversations, no doubt. And this is not a left/right problem as so many are framing it. Sexual harassment and sexual assault are men problems that we all bear responsibility for fixing.

As Auntie said, spot on Sydney.

Good works does not diminish the vile.

Thank you, Sydney.

@6 I'm a rape survivor. I'm also bisexual. Murray and his apologists did not help me. No one who uses one part of my identity as cover for their own allegations will ever, ever help me, or the countless LGBTQ survivors of rape out there. See Kevin Spacey et al.

Original Andrew, I am so glad you are free from the oppression you experienced and can go on with your life and destiny. Thank you of being you.

for not of

And raindrop you are right.

Sorry Sydney, you lost the moral high ground (and any journalistic credibility that you may have had) when you ignored all of the woman who had been abused by Jon Grant and endorsed him. Your insult to the women of Seattle might be forgivable if Grant was proposing solid policy — but by nearly every measure his proposals would have been demonstrably disastrous for renters and low income people in our city.

You sold out the women and poc of Seattle just so that you could score points with the “cool kids” at DSA. You and Heidi and Ana are every bit as horrible as the Murray apologists.

@ 9,

I'm sorry that happened to you. FSM knows I'll never being accused of having too much faith in the legal system, but this is exactly why we need them to document, investigate, and file charges when people come forward, and absolutely everyone who's been wronged should come forward. We need to make it easier for people to report sexual abuse without stigma or judgement, and for the accused to be held accountable.

If anything positive comes out of this, it's that we as a society can be more aware of sexual abuse and change our culture to one of zero tolerance.

@13 To my knowledge, no one has accused Jon Grant of sexual abuse. If that isn't true, please send me an e-mail at sydney@thestranger.com.

@ 10/11/12,

I'm trying to have an open and honest dialogue about an incredibly painful and difficult topic. You don't know anything about me or my history, so less judgement would be greatly appreciated.

@14 I also would hope that the legal system was built to address these allegations. But it is not. In both Roy Moore and Ed Murray's sets of allegations, the statute of limitations has expired. A court will never adjudicate the criminal accusations, and in most cases, the civil ones, too.

Louis CK has admitted that the rumors and accusations are true.

@ 18,

You're absolutely right. We do need some kind of new legal structure to address this kind of pervasive social crisis. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't have any real idea what that would look like, and I hope that legal and law enforcement experts are working to figure out how to address our current system's gross inadequacies. I'd gratefully support such an effort.

OG, I am buying what you’re selling. The concept of taking a person’s overall character into account when judging them for their crimes is totally established as standard court procedure as per the rule of law. Its not “embracing rape culture,” and I’m getting a little sick of people trotting out that language when someone is simply making a dispassionate, legality-based argument.

@14 As for others trained on credibility, a Child Protective Services investigator found Jeff Simpson's allegations credible in 1984: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new…

@20 I agree with you there.

@1 But even with that, wouldn't you say Harrell is wrong that the past shouldn't be judged on? The assessment of sexual abuse is the same between Murray and Moore, and you're saying there are additional factors on the scales of overall justice?

As far as those additional factors, I'd agree in principle, but they just don't stand for much in the context of the harm he did.

@21 "when someone is simply making a dispassionate, legality-based argument."

Legality is fine if you're arguing he shouldn't be legally convicted and punished yet. But you're not arguing that, because that's obvious.

The problem is when you want your Dispassionate Dude argument to crowd out discussions that aren't about legal process, but other things like truth. People are allowed to talk about truth.

#17 I am sorry. I was attempting to compliment you not judge you at all. I don’t know you at all but I just think you are a great commentator.

@25, I don’t think throwing around the “embracing rape culture” accusation, in this particular case, is about truth. That’s kinda my point. And I feel like, given how often that phrase is getting thrown around, and how we are now in a place where accusations are essentially proof of guilt, a little Dispassion might not be a bad thing to throw in the mix (and at this point there’s no chance in hell of it “crowding out” any other discussions).

Grant is accused of tokenization of women and staff of color on numerous occasions, and it got so bad he got canned. That sounds pretty bad, and I have no idea how you ignored it.

And that's not even addressing his nimbyism.

@ 26,

I apologize for misreading your comment as snark. I let my defensiveness get the best of me and will try to do better.

@9: I'm really sorry that happened to you, Sydney. I'm a (marital rape--drunken, forced sex is not good sex!) survivor of an abusive marriage. Nobody should have to go through what you, I, or any other rape survivors have, especially in the 21st century.

@22:

Buried deeply in the story to which you linked is the following line:

The withdrawn case included another foster parent Simpson had accused of abuse.

I ask kindly for you to compare it with this statement of Simpson's, published here in the Stranger:

"Nobody has ever sexually molested me besides Ed Murray. So no, absolutely no, I haven't made false allegations. There have been no investigations of sexual abuse other than him."

Does this cause you to reconsider anything else Mr. Simpson may have told you?

There is a fairly obvious false equivalency here. Impeachment is a totally different thing than rescinding an endorsement or believing someone should drop out of a race. It is fundamentally different thing than saying you should still vote for this person.

Once elected, you can generally only impeach someone for specific reasons. Generally things they do while in office. In the case of Murray, an allegation of sexual assault decades prior to taking office probably wasn't a legally justifiable grounds for impeachment. So thinking someone should resign and/or not run for election =/ thinking they did something they can be impeached for.

Many of those people who were unsure about impeaching Murray encouraged him to not run for re-election. That is the more apples to apples comparison here.

@1, @33: Of course we're going there, by any means necessary.

The Stranger ordered us to form a lynch mob for Murray, and we refused. Brownstone even used html tags to highlight our offense:

The people of Seattle, in my opinion—and I talk to them every single day—are concerned about strong leadership. They did not ask us to judge anyone for something that happened 33 years ago or that maybe didn’t happen. We just don’t know.

That is our offense: we did not demand Murray's resignation, and we did not demand our City Council remove Murray, despite very clear instructions from Brownstone and the Stranger that we were to do so. We made up our own minds, and for our offense there shall be no forgiveness.

Worse yet, we've now added insult to our injury to Brownstone and the Stranger. After Murray left office, our subsequent mayoral election was the Stranger's endorsed candidate against Murray's endorsed candidate -- and we had the unmitigated gall to give the latter a landslide victory, even as the former was literally spending a fortune to win. Our impertinent insubordination simply must be punished, and so we get lectured we're the equivalent of right-wing moralizing hypocrites. (You know, the kind who used to oppose Murray when he was securing full civil rights for the gay population of our state.)

Keep it up, Seattle, and soon the Stranger and Brownstone will have no other choice than to call you all the equivalent of gang-rapists loose in a daycare center.

@35 - That isn't quite what I was suggesting. I do think there was a problem with a lot of the response to Murray. To the extent people refused to believe pretty overwhelming evidence and acted as apologists for his behavior, that was a problem and it exposed some hypocrisy. If people believed the allegations, they clearly shouldn't have endorsed him, voted for him, encouraged him to run, etc. But believing the allegations didn’t make impeachment as obvious a choice. It wasn’t even clear it legally justified impeachment. That was a totally different question.

That isn't quite what I was suggesting.

I agreed with your statement about the false dichotomy which Brownstone created in this post; I was merely giving my take on her intent for so doing. I did not mean to imply you would necessarily agree with my explanation for her behavior.

To the extent people refused to believe pretty overwhelming evidence...

My question to Brownstone @32 spoke directly to that evidence, specifically how the source she has used for much of her reporting has now loudly and publicly contradicted the very document she cited in support of her claim that Murray was an abuser. Unsurprisingly, although Brownstone was very combative in this thread with anyone who defended Murray, she went stone cold silent when confronted by evidence contrary to her accusations against Murray.

It wasn’t even clear it legally justified impeachment. That was a totally different question.

You're absolutely correct, and you speak to the point I made concerning Brownstone's motivation for lashing out at Seattle's citizens. Anyone who dared question any aspect of the rush to run Murray out of office became yet another target for invective; as I have pointed out, when actual evidence gets discussed, the accusatory voices fall silent. Brownstone and the Stranger wanted to create a lynch-mob mentality against Murray, and they have failed. Bitter recriminations against anyone who stood in their way has now become the order of the day.