Donald Trump’s attempts to normalize sexual assault and misogyny apparently were nothing compared to Roy Moore’s defenders. Welcome to Trump 2.0.
I have one question for the Republican Party, Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and all of their supporters: At exactly what point in time did sex crimes against women, including MINORS, become a desirable qualification of government leaders?
In another time, bragging about being able to sexually molest women because one is famous would deem a presidential candidate to be unsuitable to hold the office. That presidential candidate would be driven out of the campaign on a tidal wave of shame and morality, generated by the American people, because America knows right from wrong and strives to set an example for the rest of the world.
In another time, a senatorial candidate for the United States Senate, accused by multiple women of having sexually molested them when they were underage, would face the full wrath of the evangelical community he purports to represent and be condemned with the full weight of the Bible and Christianity behind them. The voters of the state for which he is running for said Senate seat would be ashamed of that candidate and withdraw any sliver of support, because American voters place morality and justice above the ideals of a single political party, for the good of both the country and of the victims. And the voters of that state would elect a qualified candidate who is willing to work hard to bring that state’s residents together, because they can disagree with a candidate’s policies and priorities and work together to move forward for the benefit of everyone.
But we do not live in another time. We do not live in that utopian society, where everyone can have their disagreements and we do everything possible to prevent our differences from tearing apart the very fabric of the country. We do not live in a time that is even recognizable as the America that we and the rest of the world have known for nearly two-and-a-half centuries. We instead live in the time of Donald Trump and Roy Moore, living under the thumbs of a Republican juggernaut bent not only on destroying the political staples of decades past, but also the core principles which define the United States.
Because that presidential candidate who bragged to the entire world about how he can commit sexual assault and get away with it because he’s a star did become the President of the United States. That candidate, who threatened to sue every last one of his accusers after winning the election, is now the so-called leader of the free world.
“Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign,” Trump said during remarks in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. “Total fabrication. The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”
We live in a time when a pedigree of sexual assault now seems to be a prerequisite to hold political office in Washington, D.C. Because right behind Donald Trump is Judge Roy Moore, who is about to face a December 12th special election for the vacant Senate seat left behind by now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.To date, at least nine women have accused Moore of some form of sexual mistreatment or abuse. The accusations of pedophilia would — in another time — be enough to throw Moore out of the race and earn the scorn of the entire Republican Party.
But in 2017 America, Republicans now double-down on their support of an accused pedophile. Recall some of the more disturbing statements which came from Republican leaders:
But the holy grail — pun intended, as you will see — and worst of the worst defense for why a pedophile should be elected to the United States Senate may come from Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler. Behold:
“Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus,” Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler told The Washington Examiner. “There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.”
In the Bible, Mary is the mother of Jesus, and Joseph became her husband. Beliefs about the specific story of Joseph and Mary and Jesus’ birth vary widely in Christian history and across traditions. Mary is referred to in scripture as a virgin, but there is disagreement about what that means. Generally, however, Christians believe that Mary was a virgin when he was born. Joseph is usually referred to as Jesus’ “father” or a father figure.
The Bible does not state Mary and Joseph’s specific ages, but she is usually understood to be a teenager, and Joseph was an adult.
And if you thought it couldn’t get any more disgusting than this, The Hill reported on Thursday that conservative publication The Federalist published an article with an even more sickening defense of Roy Moore’s pedophilia — something I would never have thought possible until I read it with my own eyes.
Let’s first take a look at the sub-title of The Federalist piece:
I have a 14-year-old daughter. If I caught Roy Moore doing what was alleged, for starters I would kick him where it counts. That said, I don’t think it’s wrong to vote for Moore.
“If Roy Moore ever sexually assaulted my daughter, I’d kick him where the sun don’t shine, but then I would still vote for him because I still think he would be a good role model for my daughter and deserves to serve in the Senate.”
This is, in a nutshell, what the author is stating with those words. The author goes on to attack Moore’s accusers, citing, for example, a site called Powerline, which claims that Leigh Corfman’s yearbook was doctored. There are no additional, credible sources referenced in this article; we only have that author’s word for verification. A quick search and review of nearly a dozen related articles did not turn up any additional, credible resources confirming the claims.
But now, let’s look at the author’s stunning defense of Roy Moore (emphasis mine):
Here is one thing we know and should admit from the start: in his early thirties, Moore had a penchant for dating teenagers. Apparently, this was not an uncommon occurrence during this time. In fact, this practice has a long history and is not without some merit if one wants to raise a large family.
To have a large family, the wife must start having kids when she is young. The husband needs to be well-established and able to support the family, in which case he will typically need to marry when older. Consider Keith Burgess-Jackson’s (philosophy professor at UT Arlington) account of his own grandparents:
What’s the big deal about a 32-year-old man courting a 14-year-old girl? My maternal grandmother was 15 years old when she married and 16 years old when she conceived her first child. Her husband was 41 and 42. They had 10 children during the next 20 years. This was normal back then. I’m sure it was normal in Alabama 40 years ago as well. The age of consent in Alabama even today is 16 (with parental consent)…I’m sick to death of people imposing their own moral standards on people of the past, whether it’s Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, George Armstrong Custer, Martin Luther King Jr, or Roy Moore.
“It’s okay, everyone; Moore may have wanted to start a big family, so he needed to have sex with underage girls because they are more fertile than women of his own age.” The end justifies the means!
The article then effectively becomes a hit piece against Moore’s opponent, Democrat Doug Jones, attacking his stance on abortion as even more immoral than pedophilia as he is, in the author’s words, “supporting infanticide” (emphasis his). This, of course, is a very popular conservative talking point: Allowing women the right to control their own bodies with respect to childbirth is nothing but murder, whereas allowing these children to come into the world, possibly to a life of poverty, hunger, or abuse — or even sexual victimization at the hands of the next Roy Moore — is upholding good Christian values! The author, as one might expect, also ignores valid medical and scientific reasons for a woman to have an abortion, as well as scientific evidence rebuking many anti-abortion claims. And infanticide? Please.
One of the most inflammatory arguments against abortion is rooted in the assertion that the foetus can feel pain, and that termination is therefore a brutal affair. This is extremely unlikely to be true. A foetus in the early stages of development lacks the developed nervous system and brain to feel pain or even be aware of their surroundings. The neuroanatomical apparatus required for pain and sensation is not complete until about 26 weeks into pregnancy. As the upper limit worldwide for termination is 24 weeks, and the vast majority of pregnancies are terminated well before this (most in the first 9 weeks in the UK), the question of foetal pain is a complete red herring.
And never mind that Jones successfully prosecuted two Ku Klux Klan members who were involved in a horrific 1963 church bombing which murdered four black girls. From The Washington Post:
The 16th Street Baptist Church was a prominent meeting place for civil rights leaders. It was apparently targeted by the Klan after a federal court order mandated the integration of public schools in Alabama, which had resisted the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. the Board of Education. Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace (D), who declared in his inaugural address, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” literally stood in a doorway at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963, to block two black students from enrolling.
Two months later on Sept. 15, 1963, at 10:21 a.m., dynamite reduced the church to rubble, mangling cars in the parking lot and stopping clocks.
“It sounded like the whole world was shaking,” recalled Rev. John Haywood Cross, according to court documents. The dynamite blew plaster off the walls and peeled the face off the image of Jesus in a stained-glass window.
The pastor yelled for churchgoers to get out of the building, then went looking for the children in the basement. The explosion had blown a hole in the side of the church so large that he walked through it to get inside the church basement.
After digging about two feet in the rubble, “they found the body of a young girl,” court documents said, and then three others. “The four bodies were found almost in the same location as if they had been thrown on top of each other.”
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sent a telegram to Gov. Wallace: “The blood of our little children is on your hands.”
In another time, Jones’ crusade for justice would earn him praise and support from both ends of the political spectrum. But again: We live in 2017, the era of Donald Trump, when sexual misdeeds and straight-up racism are an asset, rather than a hindrance, and when white supremacists such as Neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan support the White Supremacist-in-Chief and his agenda. In 2017 America, racism, bigotry, Islamophobia — and now, even pedophilia — have no bigger advocates than Donald Trump and Roy Moore.
But what may be even more insane than what we have already seen is just how much of a push there is to normalize Roy Moore’s pedophilia. The Washington Post found out first-hand the lengths the conservative movement will go to ensure that Roy Moore wins his Senate seat. A right-wing organization named Project Veritas hired Jaime T. Phillips to pose as a victim of Roy Moore, providing a false narrative of sexual abuse by Moore in an apparent attempt to discredit the paper as one which will publish any story of sexual assault by Moore without sufficient vetting.
On Monday morning, reporters from the Post saw Phillips enter the Project Veritas office in New York. Project Veritas is an organization that tries to discredit the news media and liberal groups through undercover “sting” operations. Using video — which is often selectively edited — Project Veritas claims to expose media bias and hidden left-wing agendas.
The organization’s techniques have been attacked by critics as deceptive and unethical. Project Veritas’ founder, James O’Keefe, pleaded guilty in 2010 to entering federal property under false pretenses, a misdemeanor, after being arrested in a plan to access former Democratic senator Mary Landrieu’s office.
O’Keefe called the Post story “an imagined sting.”
The Post also found a GoFundMe.com page under the name Jaime Phillips for a “relocation to New York for work.”
This sting operation by Project Veritas is nothing more than another right-wing attempt to silence the press by attacking its credibility — something Donald Trump himself has made a habit of since the presidential campaign. It also shows the lengths that Republicans and their supporters will go to in order to secure a Senate seat for someone who has undoubtedly molested young girls!
The harsh reality is clear: America is quickly losing its status as a world leader and moral authority. The very election of Donald Trump to the presidency was an enormously reckless and dangerous abdication of moral character. That Trump has successfully pressed an agenda to promote racism and Islamophobia, to upend the constitutional protections of the First Amendment, and now to champion the cause of an accused pedophile, leaves America in the untenable position of abdicating every one of its responsibilities as a world leader and superpower. In less than two weeks, one state within the union will have the chance to begin a course correction to steer at least one small section of America in the direction of progress and morality.
Make no mistake: America is dying. If Alabama fails this next test of America’s moral character, there will be no reason for any country in the world to respect us. America will truly become an island — one of hatred for its women, its minorities, and even its children — floating alone in a sea of troubled nations left wondering just what the hell went wrong with American democracy in 2017.