Are Alabama voters sick?

[Fuzzy Bear]

Alabama's VOTERS are not sick.  They are making a voting decision in a TMI environment.  New information on Moore seems to come out every day, and folks are rightly skeptical.  Yes, I understand about the need not to discourage victims from coming forward, not shaming victims, etc., but voters are not wrong or "sick" from having a degree of skepticism regarding allegations that are coming forth almost 40 years later.  Moore has been a conspicuous public figure in Alabama for decades, and he ran a primary for Governor in 2006, so it begs the question of why these issues didn't surface then.

My own personal concern about this is not about who gets elected.  Even if Moore is guilty of all of the allegations, it's not the end of the World if he's elected.  It really isn't.  Much of the "outrage" about what Moore has allegedly done (along with much of the substance of Moore's defense) is about partisan politics.  I assure you that if Doug Jones were the accused, most of the folks awfulizing Moore, while decrying the allegations, would be going on and on about how terrible it was that a Christian Fanatic would be sitting in the Senate, trashing our "Constitutional Rights", etc. 

My personal concern is for the condition of the Body of Christ in Alabama.  Christians are seen (and not wrongly so) as abandoning their standards of personal and moral conduct to accomodate partisan political considerations, as if Jesus Christ isn't alive and as if they NEED Roy Moore to be their champion in Washington, DC, etc.  I am not sure what I believe about Moore, and, in truth, the only allegation that I'm really concerned about is the one involving a then-14 year old, in which the activity appears, to be kind, less than consensual.  This is the most serious one, the one that has the most corroboration, the one that would have exposed Moore to criminal liability, and the one he most vociferously denies.  And maybe, just maybe, Moore isn't guilty of a crime.  Maybe she was 16 at the time and memory is faulty.  (Of course, maybe some of the other victims were a tad under 16, so . . .)  People are going to have to make up their mind on this stuff based on information from a sensationalistic and biased MSM providing the bulk of the information (which, of course, doesn't make it automatically false).

What IS clear is that Moore, while a Christian, committed the sin of fornication, and appears unrepentant about it.  I'm satisfied with that.  This is in the light of the fact that Moore's whole career is about the Christian basis of our system of Law and the proper place of God in political discourse.  The Body of Christ had demanded no accountability from Moore for his hypocrisy, and this compromises their testimony to the Lost and Dying World they are charged to minister to.  This is not only unacceptable; it is un-Biblical.  Roy Moore has put himself out, publicly, as a representation of what a Christian in public life ought to look like, and he's made endless statements about the sexual conduct of others to boot, as well as what it should be.  He's portrayed himself as a cross between modern Rev. John Wilson from The Scarlet Letter, and Caiphas, the high priest of the Pharisees, with his behavior.  That he's revealed as, at a minimum, something of a troll who was NOT abstinent before marriage, would not be important if he didn't set himself up to be moralizer in chief. 

And I'm all for Moral Clarity, but Moore is a power driver with no humility.  He's a prosecutor and a judge; if this were a movie plot, he'd be well cast.  I'm all for the Ten Commandments, but Scripture, itself, states that the Law is the Ministry of Death; that Christ, and only Christ, has actually fulfilled the Law.  Christ, Himself, stated that we would fulfill the Ten Commandments by loving God with all our hearts and loving our neighbor as ourselves.  Moore's behavior shows none of this; he is a lover of Himself, and the Church is not true to Christ when it exalts such a figure as its standard bearer in any sense of the word.

That, by the way, is the difference between Donald Trump and Roy Moore.  Donald Trump has never pretended to be anything other than what he is.  He's denied allegations, but he's not pretended he's a man without any kind of sexual sin.  He's an ALLY of Evangelical Christians, but I cannot think of a statement he's made that would add up to a confession of Saving Faith.  Roy Moore, on the other hand, presents himself as a Church Leader, as a Mature Christian; indeed, as a Lifelong Christian, saved at an early age.  He's a man who knows what the Word says and what the Word means; indeed, he presents himself as knowledgeable of the entire Bible, rightly divided.  Then, in the midst of a campaign, he's revealed as a troller of teens while in his thirties, and the best response Christians come forth with is the charge that the media is lying (which it has, but the charges haven't been refuted yet) and that "Alabama isn't going to let Washington, DC tell them to elect!" (a demogogic talking point at best). 

Where are the Christians holding Roy Moore accountable?  That's the part that's sad; the fact that no pastors, no Christian leaders, are questioning why Roy Moore was a fornicator.  He HAS done that.  Why are they not asking him why he pretended to have no sin?  Because it was legal?  That's what abortion doctors can say.  In wanting a champion, many Christians turned to Roy Moore.  They hoped that he would restore Christian order to public discourse and morals.  When he was revealed as a hypocrite (and the term DOES fit Moore; he really WAS acting the role of a man without sexual sin), many Christians doubled down.  In Christ, we have our Champion.  In exalting Roy Moore, Christians cause Moore to move further from God.  Proverbs says:  "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty attitude before a fall."  As a Christian, this is an example of Biblical Truth playing out before my eyes.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Let's not forget "family values", a big mantra of the GOP.

The idea that the nuclear marital family is the environment that, in the aggregate, provides the best outcome for children, is statistically demonstrable.  The idea that we ought to, as a society, encourage childbirth within the confines of the nuclear marital family, and discourage out-of-wedlock childbirth, by fostering public policy that achieves those aims, is a good reason to vote Republican.  Stable family units don't just happen.  I'm a safety-net supporter, but I don't think it's inappropriate to examine how safety-net programs encourage out-of-wedlock births and single parent households, both of which, IMO, undermine the stability a middle-class society needs to maintain itself.

I agree that voters in AL have to deal with the fact that Moore has lost all credibility on subjects like this.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Let's not forget "family values", a big mantra of the GOP.

The idea that the nuclear marital family is the environment that, in the aggregate, provides the best outcome for children, is statistically demonstrable.  The idea that we ought to, as a society, encourage childbirth within the confines of the nuclear marital family, and discourage out-of-wedlock childbirth, by fostering public policy that achieves those aims, is a good reason to vote Republican.  Stable family units don't just happen.  I'm a safety-net supporter, but I don't think it's inappropriate to examine how safety-net programs encourage out-of-wedlock births and single parent households, both of which, IMO, undermine the stability a middle-class society needs to maintain itself.

I agree that voters in AL have to deal with the fact that Moore has lost all credibility on subjects like this.

As previously noted, the strongest reason NOT to vote for my party is for support of economic policies that tear up nuclear families 1000 times more than rap lyrics, gay marriage, or any other social advance beyond an idealized Leave it To Beaver world.

Regarding Alabama voters, no, 80-90% of leftists here (the obvious exceptions are obvious) the were tbe situation reversed Jones is a bastard.

I'm no leftist, but I would.

I'm certainly not an economic conservative, and, yes, Freedom Caucus economics have, very much, been hard on families.  But nothing is harder on a family than the decision to start one without a reliable marital partner.

The decision to have a child outside the framework of a stable marriage is legitimately nuts for most folks.  It's a simple matter of (A) finances and (B) the need to be able to exercise effective control over children when they are not old enough to vote, but old enough for Roy Moore to be interested in them and not break the law.  (I couldn't resist!)  I'm not looking to establish the bedroom police, but I don't think it improper that our laws encourage marriage and family formation for prospective parents, and discourage voluntary single parenting, or parenting outside the framework of a marital family.  I don't view that as 1950s fantasy; I view it as today's reality that folks are in denial of.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Why don't these victims take polygraphs?  And why doesn't Roy Moore take one.  That would put the campaign issue to rest.

Moore knows this, and he knows how, exactly, polygraphs are used.  If he's innocent, he'd have an advantage. 

It's amazing no one has come up with this suggestion yet.