Her allegations brought down megachurch pastor Bruxy Cavey. Then the anonymous trolls came for her. Now she’s suing him, her church — and his sidekick, the Daily Mail.
The most extreme moment in the #MeToo-era has been the #ChurchToo campaign. In the space of a few days, #MeToo has become a hashtag to be shared and retweeted by women and men who want to see their abusers held accountable — not only for the physical and emotional harm they have inflicted on their victims, but also for the moral harm they have done to the people who love them.
#ChurchToo has been one of the most popular hashtags on Twitter, and for good reason. As one woman who was sexually assaulted has put it: “When I’m watching #ChurchToo on TV, I’m seeing a woman named, I’m going to assume it’s you, I’m seeing a man named, I’m going to assume it’s you, I’m seeing a stranger named, I’m going to assume it’s you.”
It’s a powerful idea: We shouldn’t be looking to anyone other than ourselves, or even to the men who love us, to hold them accountable for our abuse.
Now, a church in the US state of Georgia alleges the #ChurchToo movement has resulted in a massive smear campaign, in which a woman, along with her family and friends, has been accused of being a pedophile with a long history of child abuse. The #ChurchToo campaign is not just about accountability; it’s also about justice.
The alleged sexual abuse of young women at the hands of the pastor and the church are described in a lawsuit filed in state court in Fulton County. In it, the woman says she was molested as a child. In 2015, she alleges, she was raped by two fellow church members while in the shower, and she says she was threatened with physical violence and other forms of abuse if she reported the abuse to authorities.
The woman, identified as Jane Doe in the suit, said she was led to believe she was “the chosen one.”
“No longer is a sick pastor able to walk into a room of thousands of young women, seduce them into an unwanted meeting and then force them to perform sex acts
