OK, I thought this would be all over here by now, but I guess people haven't checked the news lately.
Senator Al Franken (D-MN) has been accused of sexually harassing one of the women on a USO tour he was on in 2006 (before he became a senator). And there's photographic evidence.
Here's why this is different from all the other accusations we've been hearing lately, including that of wannabe senator Roy Moore:
Franken immediately issued a statement apologizing, and a little while later issued another more elaborate apology. He is not making any excuses or trying to shift blame.
He actually called for an official ethics investigation before anyone else got around to it, and has stated he will fully cooperate with it.
He's got a record in the Senate that pretty much makes it clear that was an isolated incident:
In 2009, Franken introduced a provision to the next year’s defense appropriations bill that banned federal funding for “defense contractors who forced employees to mandatory binding arbitration in the case of **14**, assault, wrongful imprisonment, harassment, and discrimination.”
In 2011, Franken joined other Democratic senators to introduce the Arbitration Fairness Act (he reintroduced the bill in 2015) to “eliminate forced arbitration clauses in employment, consumer, and civil rights cases.” Such clauses often apply to employees alleging workplace harassment.
In 2012, he supported the Violence Against Women Act, saying "The VAWA reauthorization bill is another step toward a more just society as Sheila [Wellstone] described it,” Franken said. “And I look forward to it becoming law.”
And just this past October, Franken pushed a bill to establish federal funding to train first responders and members of law enforcement in interviewing possible survivors of sexual assault. Franken sponsored the legislation after a former intern raped a 19-year-old university student, Abby Honold, who reached out to Franken’s office to discuss the subject.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/accused-of-sexual-misconduct-al-franken-previous-remarksSo.....
Personally, I'm willing to forgive him and let it go. Partly because he owned up to it and apologized, partly because it looks like he's made up for it, and partly because.....JEEZ GODDAMNIT! Are we going to keep condemning everyone to hell for relatively minor things that happened years ago? A guy like Weinstein or Moore who have a long reputation of scumbaggery for things worse than this, sure. Can't we let people grow and evolve and change their minds? Even Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the KKK, renounced his membership in that group and advocated for the admission of blacks to law school.
We've got to be able to let some things go and move on.