Ed Murray was the first openly gay state senator in Washington State. As mayor of Seattle, he supported raising the minimum wage to $15 and creating more affordable housing in the city.

And as of Tuesday, September 12, 2017, he resigned from his position as mayor of Seattle after a fifth allegation of sexual abuse surfaced.

The first four were from men unrelated to Murray. The fifth was his cousin. Murray claims that his progressive record made him a target for people who wished to bring him down and that the fifth allegation from a member of his own family was the result of a longstanding family feud.

So what’s the truth?

As liberals, leftists, and people who ‘don’t believe in politics,’ we all like to believe that we’ll call out progressives behaving badly. We’re quick to jump on accusations of abuse when they’re leveled against people we don’t like — right-wingers, Republicans and oftentimes, anyone who disagrees with us. But time and time again, when our progressive heroes are accused, we turn a blind eye, at least until it becomes impossible to ignore.

For an example close to home in the Pacific Northwest, former Portland mayor Sam Adams was cited in the press for carrying on a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old and repeatedly lying about it. When the allegations surfaced, Adams ducked behind the shield of his politics, claiming that he was simply mentoring the young man. And then he changed his story again. And again. And again. Liberal groups did their best to shield Adams, and voters claimed that his personal life has no bearing on his ability to lead the city.

But we pick our leaders not just for their abilities, but for their morals, too. We ask that our leaders demonstrate that they share our values, that they’ll champion the issues we care about, that they’ll denounce hatred and inequality wherever they find it. Is it too much to ask that they take the responsibility of calling out bad behavior even when it comes from people they like?

It’s not just in politics. Progressives have this problem everywhere. We don’t listen to people if we don’t like what they have to say, even if what they have to say is true. If someone we like misbehaves, we gloss it over until people stop bringing it up or until, as in the case of Ed Murray, it becomes obvious. As progressives, we need to learn how to separate our personal feelings about a person from their actions. We’re emotion-driven. We love heart-warming stories about rising up and changing the world, and a lot of the time, those stories are more attractive than the truth. But what story isn’t? We have to fight against the compulsion to disbelieve. We have to stop acting like truth and righteousness are only what we say they are. They’re independent concepts. And we need to be independent thinkers.

I’m glad that Ed Murray is resigning. I’m just sorry it took five allegations for him to do it.