A Word about Defending Others

A word about defending others: This week Meryl Streep condemned Trump's mockery of a disabled reporter. She described being dismayed at "that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter." She noted:

This instinct to humiliate when it's modeled by someone in the public platform by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.

These are not inflammatory statements. Most of us would agree that it's wrong to mock others. Most of us would agree that people in power should use their platform for good. Most of us want our leaders to lead by example.

It's baffling to watch my Christian and Republican leaders rush to defend Trump even from words as gracious as Streep's. For example, Franklin Graham's post-Globes statement read, 

I say, let's get behind our new President-elect and Vice President-elect Mike Pence and move forward together as a country. They've already made a lot of progress before even officially taking office, and let's pray they continue to make positive changes for the future of America.

Why not just agree with Streep that Trump was wrong? Why are we using our voices to defend Trump (who, as the most powerful person on earth, presumably needs no defense) instead of defending the reporter, or anyone else Trump has bullied?

He's big. He doesn't need our convoluted explanations of how mockery really isn't mockery or sexual assault really isn't sexual assault or lies really aren't lies. For our part, let's rush to the defense of the powerless before we sacrifice our integrity defending the indefensible.

The Syrian Stories: Vignettes

Our time with Syrian families began to run together more with each home visit. We went to two or three homes a day, always with a long-term volunteer and always long enough to drink a tiny cup of the world's blackest coffee or a little glass of the world's sweetest tea.

There were children in every home, and pregnant mothers too. One mother was eight months pregnant and desperate to find payment for a C-section as she had been told that this would be necessary due to having her previous child delivered by C-section back in Syria. She was told it would cost around $1100. The church does not pay for medical expenses for the refugees, as the need is very great and the requests are constant. Apparently some registered refugees had been able to receive subsidized medical treatment at the local hospital through the UN, but this too had stopped.

During our week, we heard and witnessed stories of miraculous healings through prayer in Jesus' name.  We praised God that He is meeting medical needs directly in some cases, rather than through the hands of doctors or the work of medications, as these are all difficult for refugees to access and afford.

One afternoon we took a cab to the outskirts of town. The pregnant mom there requested prayers for her high blood pressure to go down. She was several months along and had a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a one-year old. All were girls. Could we pray for them to have a boy so they could be done, she asked? They served us sweet tea and candy; the girls ate up the candy and the couple described how difficult it was to make ends meet on the ~$15 a month they received from the UN for each family member. It's hard to imagine how that would last, given that the diapers we brought them cost $11 and it would take them a $2 cab ride into town just to by $.75 of bread.

But some families seemed to have some money, although I never could figure out how. I know that we sat in some large living rooms, and some had shelves or decorations in addition to the ever-present floor mattresses and TV.

We met one family who had been approved to resettle in America. They were awaiting their marching orders. The young wife showed me how she was learning English on her DuoLingo app and the boys were running around like crazy while their father smoked in the corner and chatted with the men on our visit. The church volunteers had encouraged them to continue with the resettlement process to go to America when, several months before, she had resisted the opportunity in fear that they would be forced to learn a different religion in schools. It seemed to me unfair that so many were desperate to be resettled (in America or elsewhere) but had not been given the opportunity, and yet this young family had to be talked into it.

In one home, the patriarch lamented the good years he used to have and the success he once enjoyed. All his prosperity had vanished with the war. The church volunteer told him the story of Job and then quoted God's promise in Joel 2:25: "I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten."

May it be so.

May it be so for Syrians, for Syria, and for all who have lost so much in this terrible war. 

This is the last in a short series on my time in the Middle East visiting Syrian refugee families. Read the rest here:
Part 1: Anne Frank Today is a Syrian Girl
Part 2: Small House, Big Hope
Part 3: The Second Household

The Syrian Stories: The Second Household

My group has moved on to the second visit of our day, another family with several young children living a few doors down in another apartment carved out of this converted store space.

The woman here, "H," is shorter, darker, and softer. She looks less like a Kardashian than the first mom we met, but her household looks about the same. We settle cross-legged on the thin mattresses lining the room, and H bends over a baby carrier near the TV. I see that there is a small baby, maybe one month old, cocooned in a tightly wrapped blanket. She hands the baby to me! I'm excited to hold such a tiny child, and puzzle over the dark lines drawn around his eyes. Is this month-old infant really wearing eye liner? I don't want to interrupt the conversation to ask, so I just look at him and rock a little while I sit.

H. sits down to visit with us, and our visit leader chats easily with her as I stare at my sweaty little bundle. Soon my visit leader (a middle aged local lady) takes the baby from my hands and begins unwrapping the blanket as she scolds the young mom for keeping her baby too hot.

I can't understand this Arabic small talk, and with the baby out of my hands I turn my attention to the children I can hear playing outside in the parking lot. A couple of the boys in the family keep coming in and out of the house, interrupting their play to ask their mom something or to complain about a sibling, I assume. Prior to coming here I had read articles about Syrian refugee families keeping their children inside due to fear. I'm glad these kids are playing outside. They're laughing and seem healthy.

Our visit leader asks us if we have any questions for H. before we go. I'm unsure whether it's a blessing or a burden to talk about their experiences, but still I'm curious, so I ask: "Why did you leave Syria? How did you end up here?"

She briefly tells her story.

The family decided to flee Syria about three years ago. They came by vans in the night, with headlights off to avoid detection. When the driver told them to, they got out and walked the rest of the way to the border.  However, once they got there, they were denied entry.  There was a pregnant woman in their group, and they thought that if they told the guards she was pregnant, they would be allowed in. However, the guards admitted only the pregnant woman, along with H. and her youngest child, leaving the rest of the group Syria-side.

Now H. was separated from her husband and her other children. She was brought to the large refugee camp just across the border and began desperately trying to contact her husband. Two days later, she learned that the whole group had eventually been given access to the country, and her husband and children were waiting for her at another camp.

They were somehow reunited and are now living here. He works undercover at night for a candy shop. Working here is illegal for refugees, and her husband will be returned to Syria if he is found out.

As we ended our visit with another flurry of cheek kisses and goodbyes, I reflect that H's story is a little tamer than the last family we visited. There was no violent arrest, no internal bleeding, and no very sick child. But there was still a frightening night-time flight from a homeland they will likely never see again, two days of frantic separation, and now an indefinite number of impoverished and uncertain years.

Is there any such thing as a benign refugee story?


This is the third in a short series on my time in the Middle East visiting Syrian refugee families. Read the rest here:
Part 1: Anne Frank Today is a Syrian Girl
Part 2: Small House, Big Hope
Part 4: Vignettes

The Syrian Stories: Small House, Big Hope

It's my group's first day of home visits to the Syrian refugees in this town just near the Syrian border. We've already been through orientation, learning how the refugee population has exploded from forty families in the first year of the Syrian war to now more than a hundred thousand refugees living in the town and in the refugee camp nearby. There are an approximately equal number of refugees and locals in this town now.

The church has been busy. When the war began in neighboring Syria, they had no organized plan for how to respond to the first few refugees, but they knew that outreach was "in the DNA" of their church. Now they carry out a wide range of spiritual, emotional, and material outreaches to the refugees in their city, partnering with international NGOs to maximize their impact.

I've been placed in a visiting group with a local church member and a couple other short-term foreign visitors like me. As she drives us through narrow city to our destination, the local lady explains that both families we will visit are living in converted store space. The influx of refugees has overwhelmed the infrastructure of the city, sending rent prices up and availability of good housing down.

I inquire about how the refugees can pay rent anyway, since they are gone from their country and aren't able to work here. The local lady doesn't know.

We arrive at the first home and heft a heavy bundle of food and diapers out of the trunk. But apparently that is not the main purpose of our visit. I had envisioned us delivering goods all day long, but the main thing we were delivering turned out to be friendship.

An elementary age daughter lets us into the home. It's small; just a room in a converted store. Thin mattresses line the walls and a few clothes hung on hooks near a door at the back of the room. The local lady indicates that we should sit on the mattresses, and as we wait, a little boy toddles out. Soon the mother of the house emerges from the door into the front room.

"This is a Syrian refugee?" I think. She's the first one that I have met, and nothing like I expect. Her hair is bleached and she wears a tight shirt and big, gold earrings. She's tall and young. I assume the head scarf and long garment hanging on the wall are hers, to be worn when unrelated men are in the house or when she goes out.

More children shyly emerge; there are six altogether. The two oldest are girls and they help their mother serve us tea on a platter which they set in the middle of the floor. I hardly know what to make of the tea; the surface is covered in half an inch of nuts (almond?) and coconut. I both drink and chew the sweet concoction while I listen to the local lady and the Syrian mom catch up with each other. They pause to translate for our benefit.

First the Syrian mom talks about how delighted she is to be in this home; they had previously lived in a place where they had trouble with their neighbors, but now she likes the place and she has both a window and a lock on her door. The local lady translates her comments: "She feels like it's a mansion."

There was an update on the children. They are in good health, and the older girls were finally allowed to register for school today. Not just an evening school, like many Syrian children are relegated to (as there is no space in the normal day school), but a regular school. They tested into third grade, and their mother says she is proud because they've only had one year of formal schooling and the rest is what she taught them on her own whenever she could find paper and pens.

At the end of the visit, we are asked if we have any questions for her, and I ask if she could tell us how she arrived in this town. She graciously launches into a story I'm sure she's told to many others before.

They were in a large Syrian city when the fighting there began to get bad about three years ago. Men arrived at her house to arrest her husband and her. They screamed and cried; Who would take care of the babies? One of the arresting men received a cell phone call that they just needed the man, not her, so they took her husband away and kicked her back into the house.

Because of being kicked, she began to experience internal problems and was not well enough to care for her children. A Christian lady from across town braved the fighting to come stay with her for a little while.

Somehow she and her husband were reunited and found their way across the border into safety. (She doesn't tell this part of the story, and she's so engaged in the next chapter that none of us ask.)

Their toddler son had a problem with his heart (possibly a hole). He wasn't walking and was very weak. Then members from the church came and prayed for his healing. And now he is walking! Indeed, through most of her storytelling she has been trying to guide his wiggly arms and legs into his clothes for the day, and now he's toddling across the room.

The local lady explains how God had been watching out for this family, holding them up at each important moment. She uses her hands to show how He has supported and propped them up. The Syrian lady agrees.

An hour or so has elapsed and it's time for our next home visit. We leave the home in a flurry of hand-shaking, cheek kissing, and kind words.

So ends my first visit to a Syrian refugee home.

This is the last in a short series on my time in the Middle East visiting Syrian refugee families. Read the rest here:
Part 1: Anne Frank Today is a Syrian Girl
Part 3: The Second Household
Part 4: Vignettes

The Syrian Stories: Anne Frank Today is a Syrian Girl

I went to a city near the Syrian border in September. We spent a week learning and partnering with a local church that has been faithfully reaching out to Syrian refugees since they first started coming to their city about six years ago.

More than 250,000 Syrians have died in the civil war and another 11 million have been displaced. You may find the BBC's "Story of the Conflict" helpful as a quick summary of the war, although please note that almost a year has passed since that was published and the situation has arguably worsened since then.

Several months ago I read Nicholas Kristof's April 2016 New York Times article titled "Anne Frank Today is a Syrian Girl." (Photo and caption below are from the article).

As is Syria today, Germany of the 1940's was a place of great peril and brutality for many ordinary citizens. Anne Frank's father, Otto Frank, wrote to an American friend to seek refuge for his family in America. He wrote, “U.S.A. is the only country we could go to. It is for the sake of the children mainly.”

The article notes that this was not his only request for assistance in emigrating:

Along with the letter were many others by Otto Frank, frantically seeking help to flee Nazi persecution and obtain a visa to America, Britain or Cuba — but getting nowhere because of global indifference to Jewish refugees. 

We all know that the Frank children were murdered by the Nazis, but what is less known is the way Anne’s fate was sealed by a callous fear of refugees, among the world’s most desperate people.

What prevented the Frank family from finding safety in America instead of finding murder in a concentration camp? One factor was American self-protectionism. To again quote the Kristof article at length:

There were widespread fears that Germany would infiltrate the U.S. with spies and saboteurs under the cover that they were Jewish refugees.

“When the safety of the country is imperiled, it seems fully justifiable to resolve any possible doubts in favor of the country, rather than in favor of the aliens,” the State Department instructed in 1941. The New York Times in 1938 quoted the granddaughter of President Ulysses S. Grant warning about “so-called Jewish refugees” and hinting that they were Communists “coming to this country to join the ranks of those who hate our institutions and want to overthrow them.”

News organizations didn’t do enough to humanize refugees and instead, tragically, helped spread xenophobia. The Times published a front-page article about the risks of Jews becoming Nazi spies, and The Washington Post published an editorial thanking the State Department for keeping out Nazis posing as refugees.

In this political environment, officials and politicians lost all humanity.

It all sounds sickeningly familiar.

I've been to a border town near Syria. I've sat with the Anne Franks of today, and their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and infant siblings. I've watched in awe as the Lord demonstrated his faithfulness by meeting their needs in miraculous ways.

And I want you to have a chance to hear some of their stories. In the next week, I'll be posting a series called "The Syrian Stories," in which I share a few stories from our visits to the homes of refugees.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said in May, “Syria is the biggest humanitarian and refugee crisis of our time, a continuing cause of suffering for millions which should be garnering a groundswell of support around the world." (source).

As I see it, the rest of us have an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of our Holocaust era heroes.

If today's Anne Frank is a Syrian girl, I want to be today's Miep Gies, who helped the Frank family into hiding and helped tell their story by saving Anne's diary.

I want to be today's Corrie Ten Boom, whose family sheltered Jews in their home until they themselves were sent concentration camps for the crime of giving refuge to desperate citizens.

I want to be today's Dietrich Bonheffer, who was imprisoned and later executed for his opposition to Hitler's cruelties.

And I want us to do it together. Stay tuned.


This is the first in a short series on my time in the Middle East visiting Syrian refugee families. Read the rest here:
Part 2: Small House, Big Hope
Part 3: The Second Household
Part 4: Vignettes

An Open Letter to Donald Trump

Dear Mr. Trump,

This week you won the United States Presidential election and are now poised to be my President for the next four years.

Romans 13:1 says, "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established." I did not support your candidacy, but I am now under your authority, and I intend to follow you in all that is right and good. Many who formerly opposed you have publicly offered you their prayers and support as you now take on one of the hardest jobs in the world. That is also right and good.

However, I don't think our obligation to be subject to you in all that is right and good removes your own accountability for everything that you have said and done over the last year. You have wronged millions of people, sometimes by picking public fights with individuals and sometimes by insulting whole groups and sometimes by hurting the country as a whole by not taking seriously the importance of this office.

As you prepare to assume the title of President, you could do a lot of good by first trying to right these wrongs. You are in position of incredible influence; using your influence at this important moment could help set our country on a kinder, more rational, more stable course. I'm asking for an apology.

Please apologize to your personal opponents. Here are some of the things you said to other Republican politicians (gathered from The NY Times' Complete List of the 282 People, Places, and Things you insulted on Twitter):

Everybody is laughing at Jeb Bush-spent $100 million and is at bottom of pack. A pathetic figure!

Our very weak and ineffective leader, Paul Ryan, had a bad conference call where his members went wild at his disloyalty.

@MittRomney was a disaster candidate who had no guts and choked! Romney is a total joke, and everyone knows it!

These are members of your own party that you called "pathetic," "weak," "ineffective," "disloyal," "disaster," "gutless," and "a total joke." You also insulted and mistreated your Democrat opponents, going so far as to jokingly suggest someone should shoot Hillary Clinton (“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks, Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”) (source)

Your callous, reckless meanness toward your opponents set the tone for your supporters. The New York Times recorded supporters at your rallies shouting things like, "Trump that B****," "Kill Hillary," and "Hillary is a whore!" You may watch the video to see and hear more. The Times noted:

But what struck us was the frequency with which some Trump supporters use coarse, vitriolic, even violent language — in the epithets they shout and chant, the signs they carry, the T-shirts they wear — a pattern not seen in connection with any other recent political candidate, in any party.

Surely you knew that your supporters have been behaving this way, and many feel like they are just following your example. An apology from you would send a clear message that the way to do politics is not to publicly insult and bully people, and certainly not to suggest that your opponents be shot. Please issue an apology, something like this: "I'm sorry for the way I treated my personal opponents. What I said and what I did wasn't right. And I call on my supporters to join me in engaging our opponents with kindness and respect."

Please apologize to women, Mexican immigrants, Muslims, refugees, and veterans, and other groups you repeatedly wronged or misrepresented.

Your wrongs against these groups are so well documented that I won't explain them in detail, but here are a few examples.

Multiple women have accused you of sexual assault. The Atlantic summarized them: (source)

Even before the release of a 2005 video in which he boasted about sexually assaulting women—“Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything,” he said, as well as “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything”—there’s a long line of allegations against Trump. Jill Harth says Trump assaulted her in the 1990s. Trump’s ex-wife Ivana Trump once suggested he had raped her, though she has since recanted her story. Former Miss Utah Temple Taggart said he kissed her on the lips inappropriately. But since the release, more women have come forward. Two told The New York Times that Trump had assaulted them, one saying he tried to put his hand up her skirt on a flight in the 1970s and another saying he forcibly kissed her. A Florida woman says Trump groped her. A former People reporter recounted an alleged assault at his Mar-a-Lago debate, and says he told her, “You know we’re going to have an affair, don’t you?” Several former teen pageant contestants said Trump walked in on them while they were naked or partially dressed.

You owe each of these women a personal apology if any of those accusations were true, and you owe every woman on earth an apology for stating that "no one respects women more than you do" in the face of multiple accusations of sexual assault, your own boasts about extramarital conquests, and your frequent comments (either lecherous or insulting) about women's appearances. You are responsible for the fact that you now have supporters yelling "grab her by the p****" in multiple accounts since your election. (Here's one.)

An apology from you would go a long way toward re-establishing the expectation that women should be respected in this country; that they should neither be assaulted nor insulted, and that you as a leader will not tolerate such behavior in your supporters.  You could say something like, "I am sorry for bragging about groping women and pursuing extramarital affairs. [If true], I am extremely sorry that I touched women sexually without their consent, which is not only wrong but also illegal. I am sorry that I excused myself rather than humbly apologizing when I wronged women and girls, but at this point I do repent and by God's grace will be a one-woman man from now on, one who treats all women with respectful words and actions. I expect no less from my countrymen."

Please apologize to Mexican and Muslim immigrants. You began your campaign by saying, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. ... They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” (source) The fear and hatred you have stirred up against immigrants, and especially Mexican and Muslim immigrants, is the reason some children today walked into schools where their classmates were chanting "build that wall". It's the reason some Muslim women are now expressing fear about wearing hijabs in America (source).

We are a country founded on principles of religious freedom and made great by immigrants.  Mr. Trump, please don't lead us to be afraid of outsiders, and please don't lead us to be afraid of openly practicing our religions. An apology from you on this count would go a long way toward helping unite Americans of all backgrounds under your leadership, such that they can feel that you are their leader too, equally ready to support and defend a Mexican American or a Muslim American as you are an Anglo-Saxon American.

Please also condemn every instance of violence or racial intimidation carried out in your name. Your supporters need to know that President Trump will not tolerate his people scrawling racial slurs on black Americans' cars or telling people of color that it's time to go home. You can start by condemning each instance of hateful speech or actions collected in the Twitter account Day 1 in Trump's America. (Warning: vulgar language and disturbing images).

Finally, please apologize to us all for failing to take the Presidency seriously, and please give us your pledge that you will do your best to make honest statements and informed decisions.

You have just taken a position of extreme power and influence, and this comes with great responsibility. You now have the most powerful military in the world under your command. You can imagine that it gives Americans no great sense of confidence when you make statements such as, "I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things…my primary consultant is myself.” (source)

You claimed to know more than the generals about ISIS. You admit no personal weakness, and yet your statements on both domestic and foreign policy have frequently revealed ignorance, inconsistency, and recklessness. (For example, you called for our military to use torture or war crimes, such as killing the families of suspected terrorists). (source)

When you don't know the facts, you have often invented them. Toronto Star's Daniel Dale has been fact-checking your public statements and found many of them can be verified as untrue (20-37 times a day). As an example, on October 25, 2016, he caught you in 35 lies:

Please, for the sake of our country and our world, stop making things up and start learning the information and skills you will need for your new job. If you don't know something, admit it and find out from someone who does. If you make a mistake, admit it and do better next time. These are basic expectations for any job, and in the case of the Presidency, many lives depend on you making an honest effort to do your very best.

Please apologize for your flippancy up until now, and give us your word that you intend to do right by America and the world.

This letter is not intended to be a mud-slinging session, but instead a reminder that all of your actions and words still hang in the air now that the election is over. They have already started to affect our national climate and our reputation abroad, but some of that damage is reversible if you take responsibility and sincerely apologize.

You will have many challenges in the upcoming years, and I pray that you will have grace and wisdom to meet them well. Knowing that "God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6), I ask you to humbly apologize and try to right the wrongs that stand to do so much damage to our great nation. 

I personally would be very glad to follow a man who leads not by shows of power but by wisdom, knowledge, humility, and love. I believe that you can become a leader like that, and I pray that by God's grace you will.

This election season felt like a civil war, so Lincoln's words from the Second Inaugural Address seem somehow fitting here:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations

I am ready to stand with you in all that is right, and I look forward to doing all that we can together to achieve a just and lasting peace, here in America and with all nations.

Sincerely,

Alison Lentz

On Thailand, Trump, and Defending the Underdogs

Last week, the king of Thailand died. CNN called him "a revered figure who helped unify the nation in his 70-year reign."

When I lived in Asia, I traveled to Chiang Mai, Thailand, every year for a conference. It's a beautiful country. The beaches are some of the best in the world, the sun is warm, and the people are warmer. However, it's well known that sex crime is common in Thailand. Wikipedia details the practice of trafficking Thai women and children into sex slavery and notes that Thailand is rated by the U.S. State Department as a "tier 3" country, one of a couple dozen countries that isn't doing nearly enough to combat trafficking. The sex market is driven both by local men seeking prostitutes and by Thailand's reputation as a sex tourism destination. And when I say "sex tourism destination," let me remind you that this means (among other things) that men from other countries are traveling to Thailand so that they can pay money to rape Thai women and children.

Once, while I was at my conference in Thailand, a colleague made an offhand comment about the king: "They love that guy. If he would speak out against this stuff, it might get better. But he doesn't."

I don't actually know if the king of Thailand ever tried to do the hard work of cleaning up the sleaze in his country. But I was struck by that comment because it reminded me that a single leader can have amazing influence for good or for evil among his people.

I want Thailand to have a leader who stands up for the 80,000+ women and children who have been trafficked into the Thai sex industry since 1990. I want Thailand to have a leader who is willing to turn away tourism dollars if it means its most vulnerable people are better protected. I want there to be someone in the highest levels of leadership who will speak for them.

One measure of a good society is that it is good to the weak. Psalm 82:3-4 summarizes God's heart on this topic:

Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

Defend the weak.

This leads me to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump has lots of things to say about people he perceives as weak. His insults to the disabled, the grieving, the unattractive, and the vulnerable are well documented and I'm not going to repeat them here. (His boasts about trying to seduce married women and kissing or groping women without consent are also well documented and have been recently corroborated by more than one of the women in question. He is clearly no defender of women.)

When I think about my country, I want the same things for us that I spoke of for Thailand. I want the most vulnerable people in our society to be protected, valued, and built up. I want the oppressed, the weak, the poor, the very young, the very old, and the very new members of our society to have advocates. I want there to be voices speaking on their behalf in the highest levels of our leadership. Additionally, as a woman, I want leaders who make it clear that sexual crimes against women will be prosecuted, not celebrated.

I want a leader who will set the standard for defending those who most need defense. Not mocking them. Defending them. A single leader can have a remarkable impact on how the least powerful people in a given society are treated.

Based on all that you have now heard from Trump, can you really imagine him defending anyone other than himself?


Post Script: For many months, I've intended to write out my thoughts on Donald Trump, and explain in detail why I am not voting for him. I intended to try to persuade you to join me in saying, "Never Trump," and especially I intended to try to persuade any of you who, like me, are lifelong Republicans and conservative Christians.

But so much has been said about Donald Trump and by Donald Trump already that the case against him has been made. I'm not sure I can add anything to the pile of reasons against him. My thoughts here are only one small reason why I don't support him for President, and I chose to write from this angle because I thought I could bring something new to the table by sharing my thoughts this week when I heard about the Thai king's death.

If you want to call, e-mail, visit, text, or message me to delve into the many other issues at play (character, experience, temperament, national security, abortion, immigration, foreign policy, Supreme Court, Clintons, Obama, religion, or anything else), I would be glad to share more of my thoughts with you. Please keep it civil if you comment here; I will delete comments that are off topic or unkind. And please, don't vote for Trump!