I didn\u2019t leave Alabama because of Roy Moore.<\/p>\n
Ol\u2019 Roy is of a type that should be familiar to anyone: he\u2019s a televangelist. He\u2019s an aspiring martyr without the balls to actually face death. The sort of whom a smarter and sharper Hank Williams Jr once sang \u201cThey want you to send your money to the Lord, but they give you their address.\u201d He found a bulletproof hustle: the persecuted Christian in a state that\u2019s fully half Baptist. Telling the veto majority that they are an oppressed few is always reliable grift for the holy rollers, and informs no small bit of how we got to where we are.<\/p>\n
Ol\u2019 Roy\u2019s a troll. He specifically put up one Ten Commandments after another knowing he would be made to take it down, knowing that this was out of bounds to anyone with better than an eighth-grade-civics grasp of how church-and-state works, knowing that the rednecks would bay and howl to his benefit and he could use this to get rich and famous. And he did. He managed to get himself thrown off the Alabama Supreme Court twice – and the fact that he made it back to get thrown off the second time puts the lie to anyone who thinks Christianity persecuted in the least in this country – and then managed to get himself the Republican nomination for Senate, which is normally tantamount to election ever since 1996.<\/p>\n
And then, the truth started to come out.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like this is the thing that disqualifies him from office. Roy Moore should have never been elected anything more responsible than head of the coffee club. I thought about saying \u201cmaybe deacon\u201d but the news of the last week has made it pretty apparent that he never should have been placed in any position of power, by anyone, ever. I\u2019ve been to Gadsden, more than I\u2019d\u2019ve liked, and I assure you I can absolutely see how such a thing could transpire there in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the thing: you could get a Roy Moore anywhere. There is nothing exceptionally Alabama about him, nothing that couldn\u2019t have been bred in central California or South Boston or Idaho or Missouri. That\u2019s not the thing that jumps out. What jumps out is the army of loyal zombies rising to his defense, saying not that he didn\u2019t do it, but that even if he did, he didn\u2019t do anything wrong. People making Biblical analogies which are either spectacularly blasphemous or else torpedo the fundamental understanding of Christianity at the waterline. Insane talk about how he never dated anyone without the mother\u2019s permission. One thing after another that makes you grab your skull with both hands and scream \u201chow in the chicken fried fuck do you think this is somehow a DEFENSE?”<\/em><\/p>\n But he\u2019s on their side. No amount of sin is enough to make it worth cutting ties with someone on your side. The fact that they have a concept of \u201cside\u201d that is appalling at best and inhuman at worst makes no difference whatsoever. Maybe he\u2019s a serial child diddler, but at least he\u2019s not a Democrat<\/em>. They don\u2019t have an answer for it when you accuse them – when you ask exactly what part of God\u2019s miracle plan involves groping a teenager, they hem and haw and try to work around it, but it\u2019s not enough to make them disavow. It\u2019s not even a question of \u201cwell I don\u2019t want to vote for him, but the other guy is worse\u201d, which in itself would be asinine. No, it\u2019s \u201cI don\u2019t care, I still think he\u2019s the best one to vote for.\u201d It\u2019s affirmative support of a crime and a sin, simply because that\u2019s their team.<\/p>\n And that, dear friends, is why you will never find me with an Alabama address ever again, for the rest of my days. Because on December 12, you\u2019ll get a precise count of just how many people in that state are willing to countenance the unspeakable for the sake of their side. And I\u2019ll have that many reasons why my ashes will be going into the Pacific instead of the red red dirt of what was never really home.<\/p>\n Of which.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I didn\u2019t leave Alabama because of Roy Moore. Ol\u2019 Roy is of a type that should be familiar to anyone: he\u2019s a televangelist. He\u2019s an aspiring martyr without the balls to actually face death. The sort of whom a smarter and sharper Hank Williams Jr once sang \u201cThey want you to send your money to … <\/p>\n