Can the Democrats win the Alabama senate special election in December?

[Kimstu]

@hajario

As backwards as you might think people in Alabama might be, they are not actually in favor of child molestation in any great numbers.

I would have thought so too, but a linked op-ed in a post by Icarus in the Pit thread on Sean Hannity suggests otherwise:

@Kimstu

Icarus over in the concurrent Sean Hannity thread linked to this eye-opening and jaw-dropping op-ed describing how in some fundamentalist Christian cultures, mid-teen girl/adult man pairings are seen as not only “no big deal” but even desirable:

@Icarus

Interesting opinion piece in the LA Times last weekend.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-brightbill-roy-moore-evangelical-culture-20171110-story.html

From the link:

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. […]

“Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson advocated for adult men to marry 15- and 16-year-old girls and deemed age 20 too old because “you wait until they get to be 20 years old, the only picking that’s going to take place is your pocket.” Home-school leader Kevin Swanson, whose 2015 convention was attended by several Republican presidential candidates, defended Robertson on his radio show after the story broke. Advocating for child marriage hasn’t slowed down Robertson’s career. He just got a new show on the conservative digital network CRTV. […]

Much of the sexual abuse that takes place in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, or IFB, churches involves adult men targeting 14- to 16-year-old girls. If caught, the teenage victim may be forced to repent the “sin” of having seduced an adult man. Former IFB megachurch pastor Jack Schaap argued that he should be released from prison after being convicted of molesting a 16-year-old girl, asserting that the “aggressiveness” of his victim “inhibited [his] impulse control.” In the wake of the Schaap case, numerous other stories emerged of sexual abuse cover-ups involving teenage girls at IFB churches. In another high-profile case, pregnant 15-year-old Tina Anderson, who was raped by a church deacon twice her age, was forced to confess her “sin” to the congregation.

:eek: :eek: :eek:

For a non-negligible number of Alabamians, apparently, child molestation in the form of “parent-sanctioned” teenage girl/adult man relationships is something they’re in favor of. By their standards, Moore’s main error in this situation was simply not getting the girl’s father’s permission before molesting her.