When the cop claims that the reason he had to plug the black guy in the forehead was his fear that the newly deceased was trying to grab his weapon and murder him, some of us might tend to question the characterization and expect, if not demand, that the cop’s claim be characterized as an allegation. There’s a reason for this. Just because the cop said so doesn’t make it true.

And I would venture to guess that 98.7% of deeply passionate woke lawyers would adamantly agree that the word “alleged” was required. But that’s because it involves a cop and a black guy. What’s different here?

Some women’s rights advocates chafe at the media’s delicate approach, which has been pretty consistent across a range of editorial perspectives.

“I’m a lawyer, and I understand why lawyers advise this sort of qualification, to try to avoid libel claims,” said Camille Hébert, a professor at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law who specializes in sexual harassment.

If the “I’m a lawyer” line didn’t make you cringe, you’re not a lawyer. While there is a defamation angle to the use of allegedly, that’s a collateral purpose. The primary purpose is that we don’t accept something as fact that hasn’t been proven. Unless, that is, our religion demands it.

But why would that make anyone “chafe”? The insufferable Brother Joseph Patrice explains:

Many voices are calling on the media to change how it covers stories like Franken’s or Harvey Weinstein’s. They want qualifier terms like “allegedly” removed or at least changed. Still others claim the media only uses these qualifiers for victimized women, which isn’t true but that selective memory reflects the outrage over the stigmatization the term brings.

The use of “allegedly” stigmatizes the victim by questioning the truth of the claim. If there was any doubt, Diana Moskowitz dispels it.

To hear the keepers of the craft tell it, alleged is important because it signifies that the writer doesn’t know the exact, final truth. This is often true. They’ll argue that it’s important to show that what is said in cases is an allegation or an accusation and not a fact. They’ll assert that a source could be wrong, and that this hedge may prove important when, days later, reporters have to come back with different information and explain discrepancies. This is, they’ll say, America—the land of reasonable doubt, a very good legal concept we all can agree with. Report what you know, the saying goes. How can journalists be certain of anything if they weren’t witnesses to what happened? It is a sign, they’ll say, of scrupulousness, practically a sign of journalistic virtue.

Which is a load of shit.

How could it be a “load of shit” when it’s “often true” that the writer “doesn’t know the exact, final truth?” Haven’t you been paying attention? In a post-factual era, there are things that matter more than facts (which are objective), and that’s the subjective truth, what you believe to be true. And the gap between the two is closed by the presumptions we hold dear.

So my first instinct is to say that Franken deserves a chance to go through an ethics investigation* but remain in the Senate, where he should redouble his efforts on behalf of abuse and harassment victims. But if that happens, the current movement toward unprecedented accountability for sexual harassers will probably start to peter out. Republicans, never particularly eager to hold their own to account, will use Franken to deflect from more egregious abuse on their own side, like what Trump and Roy Moore are accused of. Women with stories about other members of Congress might hesitate to come forward. That horrifying photo of Franken will confront feminists every time they decry Trump’s boasts of grabbing women by the genitals. Democrats will have to worry about whether more damaging information will come out, and given the way scandals like this tend to unfold, it probably will.

The Times’ Michelle Goldberg’s point is that Franken may well not be as horrifying as presumed,** and now that he’s owned by women who can demand he be castrated, subjugated and serve them, plus clean their houses on command, he still has to go because, guilty or innocent, he has to be sacrificed for the good of the cause.

But as if a plot twist from a B-movie seized a nation, peak Lena Dunham showed up to save the day.

Dunham and her co-showrunner Jenni Konner took the side of Murray Miller after actress Aurora Perrineau filed a police report against him — claiming she woke up while he was having intercourse with her in 2012.

“While our first instinct is to listen to every woman’s story, our insider knowledge of Murray’s situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the 3% of assault cases that are misreported every year,” Dunham and Konner wrote in a joint statement.

And for this, the High Priestess of the Hypocritically Inane, despite her Gertruding, attempts to invoke statistics and artful use of “misreported” in lieu of lie, was toppled off her pedestal. It’s all true until it touches you.

So allegedly, alleged, allegation, and accusation are, in part, words used to signify whom reporters trust and whom they do not.

Moskowitz argues that this problem can be circumvented by including words like “the woman said” in place of allegedly. Even Brother Joe realizes this is nonsensical, and he would be thrilled to use his tongue to polish a woman’s mythical Manolo Blahnick black patent leather Mary Janes. It’s not the word used. It’s that doubting the victim is heresy, stigmatizing the victim.

In a religion, one believes the unseen, the unknowable, for no better reason than faith. The tenet of this religion is to believe the victim. It may not be fact, but it’s their truth. The true believers are fighting their alleged Crusade and will take no prisoners.

*The mantra “ethics investigation” is blindly tossed out as if it has some magical power to convict or vindicate Senator Al Franken. No one has, or can, explain what it has to do with anything.

**There is a debate as to whether the pic of Franken groping Leeann Tweeden’s breasts involved actual touching.

The photo is clear: Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is touching the chest of journalist Leeann Tweeden while Tweeden slept on the plane ride home from a USO tour in 2006.

Regardless, and acknowledging that it was just a big old joke, and that Tweeden wasn’t pure as the driven snow at the time, Franken’s sincere and heartfelt apology fails to concede he forced his tongue into her mouth as she “alleged.” See how that works?