gracchusdixit

The allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against Roy Moore of Alabama, who is running to take Jeff Sessions’ seat in the United States Senate, are simultaneously loathsome and ironic.  Let’s start with “loathsome.”

Moore is a far-right evangelical, who has called for homosexuality to be criminalized, Muslims to be banned from serving in Congress, and the “word of God” to take precedence over the Bill of Rights.  If Moore had his way, polygamy would become the law of the land, adulterers would be stoned in public, and the occasional first-born child would have its throat cut on a stone altar to appease the whims of the Almighty who glowers over the Old Testament like a cantankerous patient in a South Florida nursing home.

When he was the head of Alabama’s Supreme Court, Moore installed a copy of the Ten Commandments in front of the courthouse.  Federal judges ordered him to remove it, because its presence violated the separation of church and state stipulated by the Constitution.  Moore refused and was removed from office.  This did not stop the good people of Alabama from reelecting him.  In Alabama, supreme court justices aren’t appointed on their intellectual and professional merits; they run for office like politicians, which explains why idiots like Roy Moore end up passing judgment on laws they don’t understand or hold in contempt.

It was therefore no surprise that, soon after his reelection, Moore defied the Supreme Court of the United States, insisting that judges throughout Alabama should continue to enforce the state’s unconstitutional ban on same-sex marriage.  He was thereupon removed from office a second time.

Moore justifies his bad behavior on religious grounds.  He asserts that the dictates of the Judaeo-Christian god must reign supreme over all other laws and political institutions—those dictates being interpreted, of course, by pious Christians like Roy Moore himself.   Throughout his public career, Roy Moore has never tired of pontificating about the “sinful” state of American society.  According to him, virtually everything that ails us, from hurricanes to earthquakes, from diseases to the economic catastrophes, is punishment for a wicked society’s decision to “abandon god”.

Here’s where the irony comes in.

This paragon of moral virtue, this crusader for Judaeo-Christian values, this warrior  against sin, has been accused of sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl when he was a 32-year-old assistant prosecutor in Alabama.  That “girl” is now a mature woman.  Her story has been corroborated by her mother and several friends to whom she confided at the time.  Three other women have come forward to say that Moore made sexual advances to them when they were in their teens, and more than thirty sources have backed up their claims.

The accuser has no apparent ax to grind.  The criminal statute of limitations is long past, and she has filed no civil suit for monetary damages.  There is nothing to suggest that she, or the other women involved, are selfishly motivated.  They did not approach The Washington Post, which told their story; The Washington Post approached them.

Moore has denied these allegations, dismissing them as “fake news,” ginned up by the liberal media and the Democratic Party to derail his personal crusade to save the country from its godless ways:  “We are in the midst of a spiritual battle,” he tweeted, “with those who want to silence our message.”

Moore’s brother compared the accusations to the persecution and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which, to say the very least, is a stretch.  Whatever you may think of Roy Moore, Jesus Christ he is not.

Alabama’s state auditor, another evangelical Christian, waded even deeper into the biblical weeds.  “Take the bible,” he said.  “Zachariah and Elizabeth, for instance.  Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth, and they became the parents of John the Baptist.  Also take Joseph and Mary.  Mary was a teenager, and Joseph was an adult carpenter.  They became parents of Jesus.  There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here.”

As the saying goes, you just can’t make this stuff up.

Even more ludicrous than the evangelical auditor’s words is the fact that he is too dumb even to get his bible right.  “Elizabeth” was long in the tooth when she gave birth to John the Baptist, and we have no idea how old Mary was when she married Joseph—if she ever did—because the New Testament simply doesn’t say.  We can only hope, for the sake of the people of Alabama, that their auditor has a better grasp of arithmetic than biblical writ when it comes time for him to balance the state’s books.

It is possible, of course, that Roy Moore is innocent of the accusations leveled against him.  But somehow I doubt it.  Not only are they detailed and concrete, they are part of a pattern.  Moore is merely the latest in a long series of holier-than-thou Republican politicians who have been caught, if you will pardon the expression, with their pants down.

Before Roy Moore, there was Alabama’s former governor, Robert Bentley, another vociferous “Christian,” who was caught on tape in the midst of a steamy and lewd tête-à-tête with a member of his staff, with whom he was having an adulterous affair.  Even earlier, there was Denny Hastert, the former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, a self-proclaimed “man of faith,” who is now serving time in prison for having sexually abused underage boys when he was a high school wrestling coach.  There was Tim Murphy, a staunchly “pro-life” Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, who committed adultery, got his lover pregnant, and promptly urged her to have an abortion.  There was Mark Foley, a “family values” Republican congressman from Florida, who was forced to resign, when it was revealed that he had been propositioning the young male “pages” who serve the House of Representatives.  Before that, there was the hypocrite par excellence, Newt Gingrich, who, having led the charge to impeach Bill Clinton for his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, was discovered to have been cheating on his wife all the while she was in a hospital bed, disabled by multiple sclerosis and dying.  And let us not forget Herman Cain, who made a brief run at the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.  Having presented himself as an icon of entrepreneurial success and personal rectitude, Cain was exposed for having had had multiple affairs and for sexually harassing many of his female employees.

This long, lamentable list of Republican sexual transgressions could be extended indefinitely.  Needless to say, such misconduct is not confined to Republicans.  It is entirely bipartisan and utterly deplorable, no matter who commits it.  Neither Bill Clinton nor Jack Kennedy were altar boys.

The difference between the bad behavior of Democrats and Republicans, however, is that the latter are so consistently sanctimonious, self-righteous, and hypocritical.  They pretend to virtues they do not possess, and even worse, they presume to lecture everyone else about the very evils that they themselves commit in secret.

The same can be said for the so-called “Christians” who support them.  More than 80 percent of evangelicals voted for Donald Trump and cling to him still, despite indisputable evidence that he is an adulterer and a sexual predator. By what moral calculus can these people justify their behavior?  The answer is:  they can’t.  The oft-declared piety of these people is therefore no less phony than the sanctimonious proclamations of the Republicans they call their own.

Those whose faith is true and sincere do not lecture or hector others, they do not judge and condemn.  They strive to lead their own lives with quiet decency and to teach by example.  If they are Christians, they are content to abide by the words of Christ himself:  Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.  By that standard, Roy Moore and countless other Republicans are moral and religious phonies.  Their piety is nothing less than a fraud—and a sinful one at that.