It Continues to Be a Real Mystery Why Republicans Aren't Connecting with a Majority of Female Voters

[Content Note: Misogyny; victim-blaming.]

This is something that a person running for office actually said:

One of the six Republican primary challengers to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) once blamed women for causing most divorces – even when their husbands are unfaithful.

Det Bowers made the remarks during a sermon at the Christ Church of the Carolinas, where he served for more than a decade as pastor. The sermon was available for download until the podcast was removed recently ahead of the June 10 primary. But Politico obtained an audio recording of the sermon and published his comments Thursday.

"I find that in about 95 percent of broken marriages, though the husband's the one that ran out on his wife, the wife loves her children more than she does her husband," Bowers said. "That is an abominable idolatry."

He then directed his comments, his voice rising, to the women in his congregation, which he led from 2000 to 2012.

"Do you hear me, ladies?" Bowers said. "It is an abominable idolatry to love your children more than you love your husband, and it will ruin your marriage. And yet you blame it on him because he ran off with some other woman! He did run off with some other woman, and you packed his bags. All of his emotional bags, you packed for him. Is that true in every case? No, but it's true in the vast preponderance of them."

..."You just ran him off," Bowers said. "You paid more attention to your children than you did to him. 'Oh, he doesn't need me?' He needs you more than they do. He chose you, they didn't. An abominable idolatry."

Bowers released a statement explaining that, as part of his role in "steering my flock away from the destruction of the sacred union between husband and wife," he "simply shared with the congregation the information I received from the couples I counseled."

Sure. I'm definitely certain that the "couples" he counseled shared the information that cheated-on and abandoned wives were to blame for their husbands' behavior.

Well, maybe one-half of those couples did.