Why Conservatives Protect Sexual Predators
The Role of Patriarchal Oppression in Authoritarian Governments
As a survivor of CSA in the church, here is my analysis of why so many religious conservatives defend sexual predators.
It came as a shock to many when Republican after Republican shamelessly enabled Trump’s crimes against women and girls. And when members of his conservative administration, such as Pam Bondi, Karoline Leavitt, Mike Johnson, and Kash Patel, covered up his involvement in the Epstein files. Or when conservative journalist and media personality Megyn Kelly decided to be a Trump/Epstein pedophile apologist.
“Why would the ‘family values’ party defend known sexual predators?” liberals, centrists, and Never Trump Republicans ask.
To understand this phenomenon, it is essential to comprehend the Evangelical movement, the Christian Nationalist agenda, and its alignment with the Republican Party. In this post, I will break down what all this means.
Patriarchy, Authoritarianism, and Religion
Staunch patriarchal hierarchies are a necessary ingredient of conservative politics and authoritarian governments. Authoritarian regimes rely on patriarchal gender imbalances to gain and maintain power. Other forms of oppression, such as racial oppression and oppression based on sexual orientation, all intersect.
Furthermore, although not always the case, authoritarian governments often leverage religion to mobilize their support further. Religious systems already have their own hierarchies. The ‘us against them’ mentality is already deeply ingrained in fundamentalist branches of religion.
Religious indoctrination offers an avenue to control a person’s mind, choices, and body (you can’t fully control a person’s mind without controlling their body). And the invocation of God’s wrath can lead any number of people to vote against their own best interests.
In turn, patriarchal and religious communities often support conservative, authoritarian leadership because it helps maintain their hierarchical social order. And vice versa.
The resulting power imbalances, combined with the stripping away of one’s autonomy over their own body, create a cesspool for all kinds of perversions, sexual abuse, assault, and cover-ups.
Here in the United States, conservative politics are closely tied to the Evangelical Movement and Christian Nationalism. This authoritarian ideology believes that Evangelical Christians should have complete dominance over every aspect of American life, including government.
It’s important to note that even Donald Trump and MAGA are only pawns to the Christian Nationalist agenda. When Trump’s usefulness to the agenda runs out, and it appears that it has, the movement will discard him and appoint its next vehicle.
This may help put the Republican civil war that we are currently witnessing into context.
In Authoritarian styles of government, the vying for power means that your closest friends and allies are your most dangerous opponents. Your inner circles, who once protected you despite any depth of moral degeneracy, will, in time, turn on you.
Either way, the abuses will persist, and authoritarian movements will continue to protect their sexual predators, so long as it helps to advance their agendas. Doing otherwise would challenge the very patriarchal hierarchies that they are dependent on.
What is Evangelicalism?
Evangelicalism is a trans-denominational Christian movement within protestantism characterized by militant masculinity and patriarchy. Not all sections of Christianity and Protestantism fall under the umbrella of Evangelicalism.
The Evangelical movement began in the United States in the early 1900s and was initially perceived as an extremist fringe movement.
However, it gained popularity during the 1950s due to the work of celebrity pastor, Rev. Billy Graham, one of the most influential Christian evangelists of all time. Young, handsome, and media savvy, Billy Graham became the new face of Christian militant masculinity.
Although the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and his other apologists still desperately attempt to revise history to prove that he was a champion of civil rights and a close friend to Rev. Martin Luther King Junior, history reveals a much darker reality.
Billy Graham was pivotal in merging Christianity with conservative politics through his alliance with segregationist President Richard Nixon. Graham endorsed Nixon as he ran for president in 1968. During his campaign, Graham even coached Nixon on how to speak and behave to appeal to conservative Christian voters.
Graham stood by Nixon’s side as Nixon perfected the Southern Strategy, which garnered the support of southern white Christian voters, playing up on their racism and fear of civil rights.
Despite the anti-Vietnam War protests, Graham supported Nixon’s continuation of the war in Vietnam and defended Nixon when he invaded Cambodia. Graham even secretly agreed with Nixon’s anti-Semitic sentiments.
He only regretted his close alliance with Nixon when news of the Watergate scandal hit the media.
Despite the rising Women’s Liberation Movement, Graham believed in staunch gender roles with husbands dominating their households and wives being submissive. He promoted a belief that women were cursed to play a subservient role in their marriages due to Eve eating the apple in the Genesis creation story - a view that many of his colleagues disagreed with.
Billy Graham went so far as to institute the “Billy Graham rule”. This meant that he never traveled, met, or ate alone with any woman who wasn’t his wife to ward off sexual temptation. Many Evangelical leaders still follow this rule, including Mike Pence, Trump’s first VP.
Inadvertently, this degrades women by framing their presence in public life as a threat to men.
Graham also opposed homosexuality. He asserted that AIDS was a punishment from God and those with same-sex attractions would be judged by God. The Evangelical war against LGBTQ+ rights was always a means to preserve traditional gender roles and hierarchy between cis straight men and women.
In 2018, when Graham passed away at the age of 99, Trump was in his second year of his first term as the President of the United States. Although Graham did not endorse Trump, the long-term impact of his earlier political involvement is still felt in U.S. politics every day.
Despite the decades of history revisionism, it should come as no surprise to generations of Christians that the father of Evangelicalism moved up the ranks of power and influence by making his own bed with bigotry - Not if we understand the requirements of advancing patriarchal, authoritarian ideologies.
Evangelicalism and the Consumer Markets
Unlike other cult movements, Evangelicalism did not have one central leader. Although Billy Graham is often credited as the “Father of Evangelicalism”, he was not its founder. The movement has had and continues to have many leaders. Not all Evangelical leaders agree with each other. There are differing positions amongst them as well.
The movement also never had one central church. It was not pushed through a Christian denomination. Rather, it was expanded through the consumer markets. This meant Christian radio, televangelism, the Contemporary Christian Music industry, and Christian books.
Evangelical media mainly targeted Christian middle-class white suburban moms, understanding that women manage family life and drive the economy through purchasing decisions.
Over time, the Evangelical movement began to overtake the Christian denominations because it was reaching people in their homes, through their radios and televisions. Many pastors even cave to this movement against their better judgment due to the demands of their tithers.
This is why you may come across two Baptist churches, one identifies as Evangelical, while the other doesn’t. The movement continues to be criticized by both liberals and non-evangelical Christian sections.
Since the early days of Evangelicalism, the consumption of media has undergone evolution. Now, most people turn to the internet.
We see the culmination of Evangelical media propaganda in the rise of the QAnon movement, which contributed to the January 6, 2021, insurrection. We also see it in the dangerous rise of White Nationalist Extremists like Nick Fuentes.
Evangelical Christian media was also exported and continues to be exported to countries worldwide.
Evangelicalism and Christian Domestic Life
Evangelical Psychologist, Dr. James Dobson, has been one of the most prominent leaders of the Evangelical movement.
Dobson entered the spotlight after publishing his first book, Dare to Discipline, in 1970.
In a historical backdrop where the Civil Rights movement, women’s liberation, and the anti-Vietnam War movement were challenging the traditional social and political order in the United States, Dobson asserted that returning to an authoritative (rather than nurturing) approach to parenting would restore the family structure and the nation. He quickly became the authority on Christian domestic life, although not a single one of his claims was supported by research or evidence. This offered him vast political power and influence in the Republican Party.
Dobson taught Christian parents that their kids are born inherently sinful and even pose a violent threat to their parents’ lives. He imposed methods of corporal punishment as God’s design. He arguably turned what should have been a safe and nurturing environment for children to grow up in into a domestic war zone. The idea was to more or less beat children into submission, lest they grow up to become liberal protesters.
Dobson’s Radio show, Focus on the Family, became a media empire. It expanded worldwide. He advanced his teachings through media broadcasting and launched his own publishing house.
As time progressed, Dobson’s message became increasingly about gender, blaming every aspect of family breakdown on men and women not assuming their proper hierarchical gender roles while ignoring the real social, economic, and political issues that were impacting American families.
He was largely responsible for the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and helped engineer the conservative attacks against the LGBTQ+ community.
During the time leading up to the 2016 presidential election, many Never Trump Republicans and conservatives were shocked that their family values expert endorsed Trump, a known womanizer and pervert. After all, he gained his political power and influence through decades of giving Christian parenting advice. He endorsed Trump again in 2024.
But looking back at his career and politics, it should have come as no surprise at all that he aligned himself with a fascist authoritarian who can be used to push his own Christian Nationalist agenda.
Dobson remained incredibly influential in the Republican Party until his death earlier this year. Several generations of Christians and ex-evangelicals raised under the trauma and cruelty of the Dobson koolaid found themselves relieved rather than mournful.
Cementing Evangelicalism, Christian Nationalism, and the Republican Party
We have what we now call the Christian Right due to the work of Baptist Evangelical pastor, Jerry Falwell. Jerry Falwell, one of the most influential leaders of the Evangelical movement, was steeped in an authoritarian worldview and was able to fly around in private jets to spread his message.
Falwell, a segregationist, believed that Jim Crow was God’s will and even distributed propaganda against Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1967, when his state mandated the immediate desegregation of public schools, he responded by starting his own private Christian academy for white children. In 1971, he founded Liberty University, a Christian Evangelical University, which is no stranger to its many sexual abuse scandals.
In 1979, he initiated an action that forever changed the landscape of American politics: he founded the Moral Majority. The Moral Majority, a conservative political organization, fought against abortion rights and homosexuality as a part of the Christian Right’s culture wars.
The Moral Majority is very much credited for helping Republican President Ronald Reagan win his 1980 presidential election, which was instrumental in binding Christian Evangelical voters to the Republican Party.
Before the 1980s, Evangelicals never cared about abortion. This includes Billy Graham and Dr. James Dobson (who later opposed abortion). An anti-abortion stance was strictly a Catholic issue.
But with rage against desegregation, Evangelicals leveraged abortion as a means to mobilize more Christian voters into conservative, racist politics. It became the flagship issue of the Moral Majority.
To this day, Liberty University is closely tied to the GOP. Its graduates make up many of the Republican Party’s staff, playing a significant role in the advancement of the Christian Nationalist agenda.
Reaching the Youth
During the 1980s, the Contemporary Christian Music Industry (CCM) emerged as a multimillion-dollar industry. The messaging of the CCM became increasingly political, aligning itself with Evangelical politics and Christian Nationalism. It aimed to mimic the sounds of popular secular music as a means to influence Christian youth politically.
One example is Falwell’s mentee, Christian rock star Michael Tait, who made headlines earlier this year.
Jerry Falwell met Michael Tait while Tait attended Liberty University in the late 1980s. He became his mentor and helped Tait reach his height of glory in the Christian Music industry, a success that lasted him several decades. Tait would even joke that Falwell was his “white daddy”.
In the 80s and 90s, Tait’s messaging leaned into the Evangelical Christian persecution complex, positioning Christian youth as social outcasts and a part of a countercultural movement on behalf of Jesus.
The 90s saw the rise of purity culture in the church, where Christian youth were making chastity vows and wearing purity rings. Tait’s first Band, DC Talk, would promote purity culture, abstinence, and even perform for Billy Graham Crusades.
After decades in the CCM, Tait went on to publicly endorse authoritarian fascist and sexual predator, Donald Trump. His hit song God’s Not Dead became a MAGA anthem. He even prayed for Trump at a campaign event in Florida and performed for him in the White House in 2019. He continued his support for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
In July of 2025, Tait was exposed by the Roys Report for spending decades grooming and sexually abusing young male victims, including minors. Tait issued an insincere statement of repentance, and many Christians rushed to forgive him.
Following the scandal, Christian Music recording artist Cory Asbury spoke out on social media about how Michael Tait’s abuses of his fans were a well-known matter in the Christian Music Industry. “Everybody knew. Maybe not the specific details, but everybody knew,” he stated. When asked if there were others like him, Corry Asbury responded, “A lot”.
A Cesspool of Abuse
The reason so many religious conservatives colluded with Trump to cover his sexual predation is simple. It was to sustain and advance the Christian Nationalist agenda.
Although Evangelicals have been preaching family values and promoting Godly purity, the movement has always been about power. The work of prominant Christian Evangelicals promised a Christian nation, but delivered a cesspool of oppression, perversion, and abuse.
As we see with the recent sex abuse scandals in the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God denomination (although there are too many to count), Evangelical groups consistently fail to protect victims. Oftentimes, they do this with a false sense of haughty righteousness.
The patriarchy is kept intact, and the institution survives another day. It should be no wonder then that so many Evangelical and Christian Nationalist public figures and groups are not only racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and anti-immigrant. But they also opposed the #MeToo movement and continue to show consistent hostility towards victims of sexual crimes - that is, until it stops benefiting them to.
Granted, abuse occurs everywhere, across political parties, religion, and so on - especially where there are power imbalances present. We have seen this with the wide reach of Jeffrey Epstein.
Nonetheless, this particular dynamic, which occurs all too frequently in the Evangelical church and among conservatives, in the name of God or otherwise, requires urgent accountability.
Christian Nationalists and the 2025 Republican Party Civil War.
As stated earlier in this post, in an Authoritarian government, infighting and betrayal are inevitable as power dynamics shift.
Georgia Congresswoman and self-proclaimed Christian Nationalist, Marjorie Taylor Greene (presumably on her rebranding campaign), has been making headlines for her public feud with Donald Trump over the release of the Epstein files. Despite her long-term loyalty to Trump, he had gone as far as calling her a traitor, which she says has led to aggressive threats against her from men.
Conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson has recently made headlines and garnered criticism from other Republicans for platforming NickFuentes, a well-known white supremacist and anti-semite, and providing him with a larger audience. Both men are Christian Nationalists. And much of their conversation was highly misogynistic towards women.
Despite warring with each other, Trump and Greene have both defended Tucker Carlson for platforming Nick Fuentes. Both Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes have slammed Trump over the Epstein Files, though they supported him throughout his other sexual abuse scandals.
And then there is Erika Kirk, the widow of Christian Nationalist Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative student organization Turning Point USA.
Erika Kirk (though Catholic, not Evangelical) has been named the CEO of Turning Point USA after Charlie Kirk’s public assassination. She has been famously scrutinized for dabbing her tearless face with tissues while claiming that she will continue her husband’s work. Her late husband and Turning Point USA have been in a long-term feud with Nick Fuentes and his followers, the Groypers.
The above-mentioned public figures are only some who represent the civil war that has erupted within the Republican Party as we face a power shift, spurred on by Trump’s decline.
Are all American Conservatives Christian Nationalists?
Not all American conservatives are Evangelical or Christian Nationalists.
Nonetheless, taking a conservative political stance in the United States is inevitably a vote for the advancement of Christian Nationalism.
We saw this recently with conservative journalist and media personality Megyn Kelly, who went out of her way to be an apologist for Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump on her podcast.
Kelly herself is Catholic, not Evangelical. Nonetheless, in her attempts to remain in proximity with political power, she not only offered a rationalization for known sexual predators, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, but also fed into the cover-ups demanded by the Christian Nationalist agenda. And she, too, will be tossed aside once her usefulness runs out.
Conclusion
It should come as no surprise that conservatives so often protect the sexual predators in their midst. Ultimately, it is not about morals, God, or family. It is about the exercise of political power, control, and the advancement of an authoritarian agenda.
As we witness a shifting of power in the Republican Party, I believe that it is our collective responsibility to raise critical awareness and stand up against the Christian Nationalist agenda.