Accusing someone of rape or sexual assault is a very serious thing, as it’s a very serious thing to happen to someone.

It’s a common thought that rapists should essentially be drug into the streets, tarred, feathered, and worse upon their conviction. Grandeous punishments aside, in real life, people are who are found guilty of rape tend to lose everything. Their lives are rightfully ruined for ruining someone else’s.

That’s why before we reach a guilty verdict, we should make sure that the person in question is actually guilty. Too many innocent men have been put away over accusations that weren’t fully proven. However, in our society today, we spread the narrative that women who claim they’re victims of rape or sexual assault are untouchable and should be believed, and that doubt should be put away.

Former Vice-President Joe Biden reaffirmed this recently when addressing the sexual assault claims against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford.

“For a woman to come forward in the glaring light of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time,” he said according to the Washington Post.

“But nobody fails to understand that this is like jumping into a cauldron,” he added.

Democrat leaders tend to believe this kind of thing across the board, especially now that this narrative may help push Kavanaugh away from a seat on the Supreme Court. It’s a narrative the left has been floating as a core belief for some time.

This includes failed presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported. https://t.co/mkD69RHeBL

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 23, 2015

This “listen and believe” principle forces a few things on the populace. One, that having XX chromosomes automatically puts you on the side of truth. Second, it automatically puts anyone on team XY in the guilty column.

This is not how American works, and it’s as sexist as it is discriminatory. It’s innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until proven guilty because you’re a man.

However, this is the way we do things in the public court of opinion, and it’s already affected many men who have been punished for sex crimes they never committed. There was the UVA rape hoax that saw an entire fraternity come under fire for a story published in the Rolling Stone that claimed the frat gang-raped a woman. The entire story turned out to be completely false, but the fraternity members had already gone through hell and back over the unproven accusations.

That’s not all. Jay Cheshire was found hanging from a tree after a rape allegation that was later rescinded by the accuser took its toll on him. Alex Goldman was kicked out of his University and lost his job after a false rape allegation was made against him from a woman. Liam Allen was arrested, charged with rape, and would have spent ten years in prison if it weren’t for his new lawyer securing 40,000 texts that were being withheld by the court itself that proved he was innocent.

The list goes on with some men even having suffered years in prison before they were found innocent of all charges and the claim to be a complete hoax.

False accusations ruin lives.

While it’s good to listen to women who claim they were raped or sexually assaulted, every case must be treated the same way we treat the cases of other crimes. You are innocent until proven guilty. It doesn’t seem polite to the accuser, but the risk is too great to not maintain this level of steady-handedness when it comes to these kinds of accusations.

What Biden and the Democrats are suggesting is that guilt should come first. Whatever social punishments befall the accused before his innocence is proven be damned. Whatever life is ruined as a result is just one more example of how men should be careful about the way they treat women.

Not only is this unfair, it’s dastardly. Women are just as capable of lying for nefarious reasons as men are. Men are not second-class citizens whose word should be relegated to the shelf in the face of a woman’s claims. The damage it causes is too great.

If Democrats have any heart, they’d dismiss this idea of “listen and believe.” Too many men are potential victims of false accusations to not.

Besides, it’s hard to believe them when women accusing Democrats are an exception to their rule