Tina Johnson was running errands Friday morning when she first heard her home was on fire. And while her husband and her grandson were thankfully away when the blaze broke out, she lost everything except “the clothes on our backs.”
While an arson investigation is ongoing, there is at least one question that might be immediately answered: “Why do the victims of sexual misconduct, particularly women abused by powerful men, stay quiet for so long?” Well, maybe this is why.
Along with five other women, Johnson accused Judge Roy Moore of sexual harassment less than a month before the special Alabama Senate election. She was a young mother at the time, more than 25 years ago, filing for divorce and the custody of her young daughter, when she says Moore grabbed her from behind during a meeting in his law office.
Moore denied the accusation and his supporters immediately attacked the accuser. Despite the fact that Johnson recounted it in vivid detail, Johnson was immediately dismissed. The Moore camp just couldn’t comprehend how a victim could stay silent for so many years.
They might find the answer in the heaping wreck that was her home.
Neighbors report a young man walking around the property. One even told the local paper that he asked her if the home was going to burn. Police have taken that suspect into custody.
None of this proves anything in a court of law, obviously. But it does provide a snapshot of a nightmare scenario victims might fear. A folk hero down south, Moore was chief justice of the state Supreme Court and had a fanatic following. Accusing a man like that of wrongdoing makes one immediately vulnerable, exposure some might want to avoid.
