And sadly that’ll be enough proof for some people.
This was good background to why Moore is being perceived the way he is by some people
Kathryn Brightbill ✒
@KEBrightbill
We should probably talk about how there is a segment of evangelicalism and homeschool culture where the only thing Roy Moore did wrong was initiating sexual contact outside of marriage. 14 year old girls courting adult men isn't entirely uncommon.
Matthew and Maranatha Chapman were promoting child marriage at homeschool conventions up until @HomeschoolAnon and @lovejoyfeminism both made a stink about how Maranatha was only 14 when she married a late-20s Matthew Chapman.
Roy Moore is a symptom of a larger problem in conservative fundamentalist and evangelical circles. It's not a southern problem, it's a fundamentalist problem. Girls who are 14 are seen as potential relationship material. Duck Dynasty guy advocated adult men marrying 16 year olds.
Richard "Little Bear" Wheeler used to praise the idea of early courtship so the girl could be molded to be the best possible helpmeet for her future husband. He praised the idea of directing a girl's education so she could help her future husband in his work.
In retrospect as an adult, what Little Bear Wheeler advocated was basically adult men selecting and then grooming teenage girls before they're old enough to have life experience. It's fundamentally predatory.
Much of the sexual abuse in IFB churches in the US is adult men going after 14 or 15 year old girls, and the girls end up being forced to publicly repent for their "sin" of seducing adult men. Roy Moore is a symptom of that bigger problem.
And then there's Doug Wilson and his habit of protecting adult men who prey on teenage girls. But hey, @TGC and @JohnPiper still love Doug Wilson because he's "right on the gospel."
Evangelicals are going to vote for Roy Moore because what Roy Moore did is not unusual.
I could also talk about the PCA pastor who tried to do church discipline on a homeschool support group leader for the sin of warning support group members that one of his parishioners had been arrested for trying to seduce who he believed was a 14 year old girl online.
Or the other PCA church and umbrella school run by that church that allowed the aforementioned man who tried to arrange sex with a 14 year old girl online to give the invocation at homeschool graduation. It wasn't seen as trying to rape a child, and he was "repentant."
Too much of the evangelical world sees adult men going after 14 year old girls as only wrong if they engage in sexual contact outside of marriage. Or at least they think that way if it's somebody they know and like and think is godly.
I was 14 or 15 when good, respectable church men and homeschool dads started ogling my chest and evangelical purity culture taught that it was my fault, not theirs for ogling a child.
Oh, I remembered something else. Flip Benham, you know, father of the Bigot Twins, the guy went running around North Carolina screaming about trans people being predators? He'd flirt with my friends when we were young teenagers. I've been waiting for a scandal to break with him.
Actually, saying "flirt" is mild. Friends of mine would give Flip Benham shoulder massages in front of everybody and no one batted an eye that the head of Operation Rescue National/Operation Save America was getting shoulder massages from teenage girls.
I need to go cleanse my brain from talking about all of this, but for more information on the problems of sexual predators in evangelical and fundamentalist Christian circles, I highly recommend following @BozT and the excellent work he's doing with @netgrace_org.
Also, read this thread where Amethyst explains and elaborates on why I used the language I used--it'sthe language that reflects how we were taught it.
mobile.twitter.com/AmethystMarieTM/status/928840769003278336
Correction on the Matthew and Maranatha Chapman story, she was 15 and he was 27 when they married. He first expressed interest in her to her father when she was 13, and was given permission to marry her when she was 15. They married a month later.