Senator Roy Moore
Roy Moore shouldn’t win. He can’t possibly win. He shouldn’t even be running!
Many of you reading the headline to this piece likely had these thoughts flash through your mind. I confess that I shared those thoughts for months as I observed in disbelief the Moore campaign from afar. But now the day has arrived. The day when Alabama gets to decide who its next United States Senator will be. And it seems not only probably, but likely that Moore will emerge the victor.
Obviously I take no great satisfaction in writing that. My prediction of doom doesn’t mean it’s predestined. But in observing this race, I can’t forget a political race from around this time last year. We were assured then that there was no way that a man of Donald Trump’s caliber — an avowed racist, proud xenophobe, staunch authoritarian and serial sexual abuser — could gain the presidency. It was impossible, they said.
But then the “impossible” happened. And so none of us should ever again doubt the forces of white supremacy and patriarchy to find a way to restore what they see as the natural order.
To supporters of men like Moore and Trump (and I use the word “men” loosely) it hardly matters what the rest of us think. They don’t seek our approbation — rather, they openly scorn it. They see it as a point of pride that Moore (and Trump before him) has defied the calls from outside forces to drop out of the race. They yearn for the return of an imagined America in which white, middle-class Christians had control over their social and economic destinies. In all other respects, their chosen candidates lead private lives that explicitly contravene with their Christian beliefs, but they’ll look the other way so long as they mouth the expected pieties and embrace the traditional prejudices.
Moore’s history of sexual assault and harassment has been well documented and has rightfully been the crux of many critics’ ire. But the lurid details of his sexual misconduct has overshadowed a litany of outrageous public pronouncements and actions that should, by all rights, have long ago torpedoed his Senate chances.
Just to underline the point, Moore is someone who:
· refused a federal court’s order to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments in the lobby of a state government building
· defied a federal court decision to end the state’s unconstitutional ban on same-sex marriage
· authored homophobic and scientifically unverified opinions as an Alabama judge (e.g., “homosexual conduct [is] detrimental to the children”)
· criticized Rep. Keith Ellison for taking the oath of office while swearing on a copy of the Quran (e.g., “Islamic law is simply incompatible with our law”)
· spread the patently false and racist conspiracy theory that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States
· blamed national tragedies such as 9/11 and mass shootings on “America losing the acknowledgement of God”
· expressed a kinship with, and sympathy for, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin: “Maybe he’s more akin to me than I know”
· responded to a radio show host’s remark that “all constitutional amendments after the 10th should be abolished” by agreeing “that [it] would eliminate many problems”
· claimed that America was great “at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery — they cared for one another”
And the lowlights go on from there. But again, that hardly matters because of one primary consideration: Moore’s strict anti-abortion stance. It isn’t that Moore’s religious values distinguish him from his opponent, Dough Jones; after all, Jones is also a professed Christian. But it’s Moore’s adherence to the anti-abortion issue that what matters most to many so-called values voters. Even though their desired outcome — the overturning of Roe v. Wade — doesn’t appear to be a legislative priority for the “president” or his party at present, electing Moore to the Senate brings them one step closer to actualizing their dream. Ironically, however, it has blinded them to the sage warning of their savior: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
As a country, we have to brace ourselves for the worst case (i.e., likely) scenario that Roy Moore will be elected to the Senate. If and when that happens, it will inflict a great psychic and spiritual cost on the country as great as the one we suffered last November. The question is, do we succumb to the darkness, or redouble our efforts to bring it into the light?
