This article, which appeared in the Los Angeles Times, raises curious cultural issues about Roy Moore’s situation.
Within a certain sort of Evangelical culture, it is not uncommon for older men to date young teenagers. Courtships between older men and girls in their young teens are sanctioned, even encouraged.
The author, Kathryn Brightbill, writes:
We need to talk about the segment of American culture that probably doesn’t think the allegations against Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore are particularly damning, the segment that will blanch at only two accusations in the Washington Post expose: He pursued a 14-year-old-girl without first getting her parents’ permission, and he initiated sexual contact outside of marriage. That segment is evangelicalism. In that world, which Moore travels in and I grew up in, 14-year-old girls courting adult men isn’t uncommon.
I use the phrase “14-year-old girls courting adult men,” rather than “adult men courting 14-year-old girls,” for a reason: Evangelicals routinely frame these relationships in those terms. That’s how I was introduced to these relationships as a home-schooled teenager in the 1990s, and it’s the language that my friends and I would use to discuss girls we knew who were in parent-sanctioned relationships with older men.
According to the law in Alabama and most other states, sexually assaulting a child under 16 is a crime. It is not dating, it’s a crime.
Since this is a part of our culture that I don’t understand, I suggest you read the article. I won’t summarize it beyond what I have already written.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How creepy! And read the comments. There is some person who goes a little further with the explanation and it is absolutely dreadful.
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I was the one that brought this piece to the attention of the owner of this blog.
So I feel responsible for making two small points.
First, it is an op-ed.
Second, what initially caught my attention was this tagline at the end concerning the author:
[start]
Kathryn Brightbill is legislative policy analyst at the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, a nonprofit advocating for the interests of home-schooled children.
[end]
I didn’t even know that such an organization existed. And after reading the piece and feeling it had some relevance to this blog’s focus on education and public schools, I felt compelled to pass it along.
Lisa M: I agree with your suggestion to “read the comments.” Including those that are examples of just the sort of defense of egregious conduct that the author lays bare.
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Thank you, KrazyTA.
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Evangelicals, like all extremists, cherry pick from the Bible to support whatever they want to think and anything they want to do.
That’s why they probably ignore this in Moore’s case.
In 13:2 Paul shares the first consequence if you fail to submit to the government. He writes, “Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.”
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Romans 13:2
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The quote I found didn’t point that out. Thank you. There was more on that topic from following quotes. I think I provided the link.
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I encountered a friend from years back who is a fan of Donald Trump…..she explained things very clearly to me, so I could understand. Obama and Hillary are demons who eat children. Neither of Obama’s children are really his…and she has biological proof…she does her research. I tried to tell her that all that stuff is just crazy—and that it is likely that Trump is likely to be revealed as a genuine pervert. She said, so what? Most men are. She said she would never lie to me. I told her I believed her—-she would not lie to me. That is true. She was telling me things she truly believed. Makes it a bit scary.
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When Putin releases the tapes . It should be interesting .
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Interesting in how much the tapes were revised and if experts here can discover they were revised. Trusting Putin is like being locked in a cage with several angry rattlers and trusting they will not bite.
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Lloyd Lofthouse
How much revision is needed to tapes of water sports.
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water sports equals golden showers on a mattress?
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Lloyd Lofthouse
Yes , I thought that was obvious
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But the obvious seems to be opaque to those that support Trump and the GOP. They must all be deaf, dumb and blind. In Trump’s case, it doesn’t matter because he has no brain to be deaf, dumb and blind. He is a non-Jewish Golem made of clay molded by his racist, crooked father and Putin.
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My brother sent me emails in which Obama was declared to be the anti-Christ that would destroy the US. Obama set up death camps to kill everyone. FEMA camps were just a cover for all the murders. Pope Francis is aligned with the devil and the head of the UN is in works with the devil to take over the whole world..one world united under satan.
I haven’t asked him what he thinks of Trump. I don’t really want to know.
Unfortunately, there are piles of garbage floating around on the internet. I’m sure there is an organization that puts out all the $)#)($%(^&)#$(^^*$^my brother believes.
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In some states it is legal for older men to marry underage girls, even fourteen year olds, with the consent of their parents. When their wives “age” there’s a divorce and a new marriage to a younger model. All perfectly legal, though I sure some palms are greased.
Of course, this is a different scenario. We call sex with a minor by an adult statutory rape no matter whether it is consensual or not. There can be no justification.
Add this man to the growing list of despicable men who abuse women.
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A good article by a GOP woman in Alabama explaining why victims of abuse remain silent: fear and shame
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/11/this_is_exactly_why_women_dont.html
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A woman who was the abused daughter of infamous polygamist Warren Jeffs talks about the mental abuse that keeps women from talking about the physical abuse.
https://www.today.com/news/daughter-polygamist-warren-jeffs-tells-how-she-broke-free-his-t118665
This woman is amazing. She was not only able to break free from the abuse after being brainwashed from birth, but is now talking about it in a book and on TV. It’s hard to imagine the strength and courage that this has taken.
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I was not raised in this religion so the info in this piece was shocking to me. Which apparently is not scandalous to evangelicals, but kind of OK? Maybe?
I live in TN where there are lots & lots of people who attend fundamentalist churches. A friend who was raised in an extremely conservative evangelical church was taught that abuse is the child’s punishment for disobeying their father(s). Fathers hold the ultimate authority in the family and are permitted to discipline girls as they see fit. Apparently, sexual abuse is considered discipline. The shame and guilt imposed is supposed to lead the girl to repent her sins and accept Jesus.
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WOW ….just … WOW!
A CHILD does not have the power of consent.
Nor can a parent sell/market and/or give a CHILD to an ADULT for their sexual misuse even under the guise of “marriage”!
Is that not a form of “slavery”?
AND illigal by law?
WOW!
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Gerald – you are in for a shock. Look up Age of Marriage in Wikipedia and see all the exceptions with parental and/or judicial consent. In many states there is no minimum stated. In New Hampshire it’s13 for females,14 for males and in Massachusetts the common law marriageable age could be as young as 12. It’s only been since 2017 that the minimum age is set at 17 with parental and judicial consent in New York State. At 18 youths can marry who they want without permission in most states, although they have to be 21 in Mississippi and 19 in Nebraska.
It’s a real eye opener.
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Dear Mr. Moore:
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Matt 25:40
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Brethren, not sisters. No one cares what you do to them. The Old Testament is full of orders to the Jews to carry off the virgins of any peoples they conquer for use as concubines, and Jesus specifically says he didn’t come to overturn the law but to fulfill it.
It takes a little work, but if you use the Bible creatively, you can do pretty much anything you want.
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“Seek and ye shall find”
Matthew 7:7
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And actually, the full quote from Matthew can basically be read as a justification to do whatever one pleases:
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”
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No, this is King James. The Hebrew term refers translated here is not gendered. And yes, one has only to read the account of the slaughter of the Midianites to see the horrors that we silly monkeys have in the past attributed to Divine Will–murder all then men and boys and married women and subject the unmarried women to sexual slavery. And yes, poor readers, ignorant of history, can make anything of all this. That’s child’s play. Understanding the historical context of these many books that people call the Bible is not.
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What about?
Calling God as “Our Father”, is not a new idea only seen in the New Testament. It is a recurring depiction of the close relationship between the Creator and His people, commonly seen in the Old Testament. Yeshua and the New Testament writers did not invent this idea. Rather they built upon the thought of having such a loving Creator, who was willing to call His creation “His Children”. Our Heavenly Father has, and will not change. He has always seen the ones who love Him as Children, and His people have also understood their Creator to be a loving Father from ancient times.
What was Jesus thinking when he said he was the Son of God? Did he really mean he was the SON of God or was he just saying what everyone else was saying before and during his time since it was common for most if not all Jews to think of God as their Father?
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In the Gospel of Thomas, Yeshua says, “If people say that the kingdom is in the sky, then the birds are above you. If they say it is in the sea, then the fish are above you. But the kingdom is neither in the sky nor in the sea. It is within you and all around you.
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I guess that would be a Greek term. I know that it is rendered in various translations as male or male and female. I’ll have to look up the passage. Probably the use of the masculine to refer to both sexes, as we have long done in English.
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ἀδελφῶν adelphon, brothers
but not necessarily gender specific
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ἀδελφῶν adelphon, brothers
But probably not gender specific
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I once met a Christian tee shirt salesman when we both were marooned in Detroit due to an airline malfunction. He related to me that the tee shirt market did not take kindly to his favorite shirt, which featured your above quote. Seems they liked other parts of the word better. Bloom County said it best years ago: “collective guilt makes my stomach ache”.
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Awesome comment, Roy
This Yeshua of Nazareth is also the one who said, “Did not the psalmist say, ‘Ye are gods’?” Here’s what I say to these fundie preachers: Listen, Yeshua of Nazareth was a friend of mine. I serve with Yeshua. And Pastor, you’re no Yeshua of Nazareth.
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The tragic thing about the guy is that selling tee shirts to nominal Christians had made him uncommonly fond of scotch whiskey, which he was able to afford. We felt quite a bond with his dispair concerning th state of our common faith.
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I recall one of the issues with the Branch Davidian cult in Waco was the marrying of young girls at age twelve or thirteen. They also considered themselves to be “good Christians.”
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Most if not all of these cults (of which Polygamist cults are probably the prime example) are simply elaborate schemes to give the men at the top sexual access to women and girls.
The same was true of the Charles Manson cult and the cult of Sun Myung Moon.
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EEEEEWWWWW … CULT is the right word to use.
Would like to add that Charters are CULT-like … scary.
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I would not say that all charters are cults, but certain ones (Gulen, for example) certainly have all the trappings.
The cult leaders are always weirdos (and often sex crazed weirdos) which is certainly not definitive proof of cultism, but it is evidence, nonetheless.
If it looks, talks and acts like a cult, chances are good that it is.
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Here’s the bottom line, for me: Adults can do and think as they please, as long as they do so consensually. They can believe that their god is the true one and becomes a wafer. They can believe that someone told the sun to stop in the sky and it did. But when they engage in non-consensual behavior–which is the case when we’re talking about employees or students or children–there are very strict limits regarding what is acceptable and what is not. You want to have plural wives or husbands? Enjoy. But if they are below the age of consent, decency requires that we use force to stop you.
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Your reference to the wafer recalls a line from a song by Tom Leherer: “two four six eight, time to transubstantiate.” I think it was called the “Vatican Rag”
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remember it well. very funny. I was particularly fond of his Oedipus Rex and his Lizzie Bordon.
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I’d rather marry a duck billed pratap us than to end up like old Oedipus
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What does it say about men if a grown man can be controlled like a puppet by a 14 year old girl? Is this really the image of manly masculinity that this “good Christians” (sic) want to put forth?
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FYI: The age of consent is 16 in Alabama, so 14 is legally considered rape and any individual who commits this act, whether or not they receive jail time, has to register as a Sex Offender.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Kudos to all those who are stepping forward to report acts of indecency whether underage or adult. It’s time we stopped tolerating sexual abuse by those weilding their domination or power over those who are not in a position to fight back.
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This is not a defense of Moore, but what was the age of consent in Alabama when this took place? Let’s establish that this allegation is a crime first.
While the general age of consent is now set between 16 and 18 in all U.S. states, the age of consent has widely varied across the country in the past. In 1880, the age of consent was set at 10 or 12 in most states, with the exception of Delaware where it was 7. The ages of consent were raised across the U.S. during the late 19th century and the early 20th century. By 1920 ages of consent generally rose to 16-18 and small adjustments to these laws occurred after 1920. As of 2015 the final state to raise its age of general consent was Hawaii, which changed it from 14 to 16 in 2001
After the 1995 Landry and Forrest study concluded that men aged 20 and older produced half of the teenage pregnancies of girls between 15 and 17, states began to more stringently enforce age-of-consent laws to combat teenage pregnancy, in addition, to prevent adults from taking advantage of minors.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but that law in Alabama was implemented in 1975.
The defendant is charged with rape in the second degree.
A person commits the crime of rape in the second degree if he/she, being 16 years
or older, engages in sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex who is less
than 16 and more than 12 years old, provided the actor is at least 2 years older than the other person.
To convict, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt each of the following
elements:
(1) The defendant engaged in sexual intercourse with
[Insert Victim’s name]
(2) The defendant and [Insert Victim’s name] were members of the opposite sex;
(3) The defendant was 16 years old or older and at least 2 years older than
[Insert Victim’s name];
(4) [Insert Victim’s name] was less than 16 and more than 12 years old;
(AND)
(5) The defendant acted [Insert appropriate mens rea element – See use of Note].
Sexual intercourse has its ordinary meaning and occurs upon any penetration,
however slight; emission is not required.
Consent is no defense to a prosecution for this offense.
Click to access 13A-6-62(a)(1).pdf
If I am correct, then Moore is guilty because he molested the 14-year-old in 1979 and there’s more details on this law and other laws in Alabama on this crime.
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His guilt or innocence presumably would be decided in a court of law and not in the court of public opinion. Is there a statute of limitations?
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It looks like Moore might not have to worry about going to court or to prison if it is a civil lawsuit but if it is a criminal case it will probably be a he-said, she-said case and it will be up to a jury to convict. I think she does have witnesses that were friends she told this to soon after it took place.
Here’s what I found out:
Civil Lawsuits for Sexual Abuse
Unfortunately, Alabama has some of the shortest sexual abuse statutes of limitations in the United States. A civil sexual abuse case must be filed within:
In childhood sexual abuse cases, two years from the victim’s 19th birthday, or
Two years from the event in adult sexual abuse cases.
Criminal Cases for Sexual Abuse
No statute of limitations: rape, violent sexual abuse, sexual abuse with the threat of violence, and any sexual abuse of a victim under the age of 16,
Other felony sexual abuse: three years, and Misdemeanor abuse: one year.
https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/alabama-statutes-of-limitations-for-sexual-abuse.html
Depending on the GOP and the voters in Alabama, his political career might be over, but remember, Alabama voted for Trump and the evidence for him being a sexual predictor of adult women was his own voice recorded by a TV show (Access Hollywood, I think), and Trump took Alabama with 62.08-percent of the vote to 34.36-percent for Hillary Clinton.
The worst that will probably happen to Moore is that his political career is over.
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Really? He might get elected.
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I don’t want him to get elected. I want him to rot in hell for eternity.
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You know Lloyd, whether it was legal or not, it’s still disgusting and I could never bring myself to vote for an individual who participated in such a heinous act.
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I sincerely want most or all of the voters to think just like you do about Moore and then they won’t vote for him. The GOP must be going crazy. If Moore loses his Senate seat, the GOP ends up with 51 seats instead of 52 – one seat closer to losing the Repub majority that is wrecking so much havoc on this republic.
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