Sexual Predation & American Politics (#55)
It is a sign of the times when a long standing universal problem, such as the sexual predatory behavior of men towards women, in America becomes a partisan issue, divided into Republican predators - and Democratic predators. The imminent election race for the U.S. Senate between Republican Judge Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones, is not being defined by the difference in their probable governing policies, but by the potential acceptance of an alleged sexual predator of teenage girls (Roy Moore) and the fact that he is a Republican, and therefore more acceptable even as an alleged pedophile than a generally strait-laced Democrat, because he is a Democrat. Only in America, eh?
This competitive twisted race began with the President himself, Donald J. Trump, who most famously stepped off a bus, spouting embarrassing crudity (as the reflex base instinct of small men to brag to even smaller men) about intimidation and sexual exploitation of females, and stepped into everlasting infamy, and unimaginably, after that, right into the U.S. Presidency.
The fact that his cringe worthy confessions became public, and they still did not alter his winning trajectory to the Office of the President, was very unfortunate, because it set the precedent that Judge Roy Moore and the Republican Party are counting on to be their winning strategy in the current Senate election, in the traditionally Republican stronghold State of Alabama.
Well, Judge Roy Moore, it turns out, allegedly had a taste for very young girls, in their teens, when he was in his early thirties as an Assistant District Attorney. Allegedly, he sexually molested a 14 year old girl in those days, about forty years ago, who came forward to accuse him of the alleged crime now. Upon the coming forward of this accuser, several other women came forward and added their voice to her accusations, claiming inappropriate advances and sexual abuse involving them and the now community stalwart, Judge Roy Moore. Others that knew the girls, in those days, and/or knew the Judge, have apparently corroborated their accusations by confirming his young girls chasing behavior and his bizarre proclivity for dating inappropriately young girls, for a thirty-some-years-old Assistant District Attorney.
After the accusations became public, Roy Moore took the example of President Trump and just outright and consistently denied the allegations, even though he seemed to give less than convincing replies to Sean Hannity of Fox News, so much so, even Hannity, a die-hard Right-Wing defender, came to doubt him. The real die-hard though, Donald Trump, when it comes to self interest over any other interest, especially in what’s good for others or the country, has always doubled down and backed Roy Moore by the simple explanation - ‘he (Roy Moore) denies it, totally denies it’ - as if denying ‘it’ is tantamount to total vindication. In Trump’s mind it is.
Judge Roy Moore from Alabama, who is running for a Senate seat, an odd mixture of Bible-thumping, yet aggressive and violent Southern American Christian, who believes entirely in the teachings of Jesus Christ, till it clashes with his behavior, to the point he installed a physical engraving of ‘The Ten Commandments’ outside the doors of his Court, which was forcibly removed by the State Authorities, and who proudly waved a pistol at one of his election rallies, willfully and blithely ignoring Christ’s admonishment to never use violence, and when wronged to turn the other cheek, forgive and love the enemy, instead of shooting them.
Judge Roy Moore seems to believe, as do so many American Christians (more colloquially known as ‘Evangelicals’), that the constitutional Rights bestowed upon them by the Second Amendment allows them to overrule the Bible, when it comes to owning and using guns and resorting to violence to defend themselves, in direct contradiction of Christ’s admonishment to never resort to violence, even when threatened with death, as He (Jesus) demonstrated on the Mount of Olives at Gethsemane, when He strictly forbade his disciples to use violence to defend Him, from those that had come to take him away, to later crucify Him.
True Christianity has always been such an impractical faith to follow and to practice truthfully, and hence you get practitioners such as Roy Moore, who practice Christianity of convenience. Such Christianity of convenience allows Moore and others, such as the faith-avowed Republicans, to ignore most other human indiscretions such as Trump’s self confessed abuse of women, and his constant and industrious untruthfulness, damaging financial greed, and the pursuit and retention of political power.
And hence the sinful destruction of Healthcare, environmental and financial regulations that protected the average citizen, and the horrendous tilting of the Trump Tax ‘Reform’ Bill towards the powerful, that’ll hurt the average American, and further enrich the already wealthy. All made possible by the professing of ‘Christian values’ that have political currency (even Trump, hilariously, made an effort to mumble unintelligible ‘Christianity’ during his campaign) which of course had no real bearing on his or his fellow Republican’s subsequent daily behavior.
Moore’s predilection for underage ‘and much too young girls for his age’, certainly falls into the broadband of adherence to the ‘Faith of Convenience’. As an example of such practitioners let us cite one of Moore’s supporters: this one rather shockingly gave the example of Mary/Joseph/Jesus as the justification for an older man sexually assaulting a young girl, saying that Mary was a teenager when Joseph, a grown man, ‘knew her’, resulting in Jesus. It was a shockingly ignorant justification, as it ignored the crucial fact that according to the Scriptures, Mary was untouched by ‘man’ and therefore was a ‘Virgin’, and remained a virgin, untouched by any man when she became pregnant and gave birth to Jesus; and it forgot that those critical Biblical facts were the key principles leading to the claims of divinity for Jesus (God’s Son, not Joseph’s). It was a laughable and ignorant defense of Roy Moore’s behavior by his supporter.
But in the main, that ignorant defense is representative of the kind of thinking that permeates the Republican Party and certainly Trump, as they support Moore, and the myriad things they do that are just plain wrong, as favoring the rich over the poor, a decidedly un-Christian, and un-Christ-like thing to do, by not keeping in mind the salient facts of Christ’s life and teachings.
On the Democratic side, Senator Al Franken was out-ed by a woman Radio Show Host that he had worked with, and later by other women. Unlike the Republicans, particularly President Trump and Judge Roy Moore, who to this day are denying the allegations in spite of more than enough corroborating evidence that there is considerable truth to the accusations, Al Franken did not outright deny anything, although he did put caveats in that were denounced, but overall quickly apologized and subjected himself to an Ethics Committee investigation. Then under pressure from his fellow Democratic Senators, he announced his resignation from the Senate.
Next, it was disclosed that long serving Senator and Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, John Conyers Jr., was also accused of inappropriate behavior towards some young woman that had worked for him. After some resistance Senator Conyers has also resigned.
The plethora of accusations of bad behavior, including of the many in the Entertainment Industry (Democrats and Republicans), that have gone from being famous, to infamous, like Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Lewis C.K. and too many others to mention, certainly seems to indicate that sexual misconduct isn’t confined to any political ideological of industry, but the (liberals) Democrats it seems, they are a bit more willing to ‘fess-up’ rather than the Republicans, who seem to be more inclined to deny everything upfront and try and brazen through, hoping their supporters discount the objectionable behavior and find them preferable to any Democrat, regardless of the serious character flaws; which is exactly the attitude that gave a compromised America (by Russia), a stunningly inappropriate President in Donald Trump after the 2016 Election.
History may be ready to repeat itself. On December 12, 2017, the fiercely Republican State of Alabama may send an equally flawed Republican Senator to the U.S. Senate, in Judge Roy Moore.
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