I got into a "heated discussion" the other day on FB, one of the reasons why I deactivated my account. My whole point was that Ford needed to be heard, Ford should be offered the opportunity to speak and present her allegations and what she had to support her accusations. Kavanaugh also needed to be heard and either accept or deny her allegations. He chose to categorically deny any events she claimed happened with him. He never refuted she wasn't assaulted, just that he was not the one who did it.
This article says what I was trying to say very clearly: The Problem With #BelieveSurvivors.
This, I believe, is one of the most important and balanced points to be made:
Even as we must treat accusers with seriousness and dignity, we must hear out the accused fairly and respectfully, and recognize the potential lifetime consequences that such an allegation can bring. If believing the woman is the beginning and the end of a search for the truth, then we have left the realm of justice for religion.
Religion in this context does not leave room for the accused, except on the torture device deemed appropriate by the mob calling for the blood of the accused.
Here is another important truth:
The best reporting of the #MeToo movement has shown that when journalists examine all the possible holes in an accuser’s account, find corroborating witnesses and documentary evidence, and give the accused the opportunity to respond, they make the victim’s story more powerful. (Men can sexually assault men, women can sexually assault women, and women can sexually assault men. But the vast majority of these allegations are of males assaulting females.) [emphasis mine]
More powerful as in believable, more credible and most importantly, more likely to convict. Without any evidence on the side of the accused and hundreds of people saying "In my experience, the accused is the polar opposite of that the accuser is describing," meaning everything I know about this man is the opposite of what you describe. Face it, someone who does something heinous like sexual assault will more than likely not stop until caught and punished. And maybe not even after that. Bill Cosby was brought down because he sexually assaulted dozens of women over the years.
We are, after all, the land that holds as one of our cornerstones the presumption of innocence in the face of an accusation. The accuser must prove the accused did the deed, according to the standards of the venue. A criminal proceeding is "beyond a reasonable doubt." A civil proceeding is "the preponderance of the evidence" and so on. To have the accused prove innocence is to try to prove a negative, i.e. something didn't happen. Try to prove the sun rises in the east at noontime.