Evangelicals support for Roy Moore exposes hypocrisy

hands praying, religion, christian, pixabay user congerdesign

Roy Moore is the embodiment of sin. He has been alleged to have sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl, dated teenagers and groped women. These allegations span decades, during which Moore advanced in his career all the way from being an assistant district attorney to becoming the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. He became the top enforcer of the law despite grossly violating it over and over again. He has been a hypocrite the entire time.

Despite all this, Evangelical support for Roy Moore remains strong – in fact, it has increased since the first allegations were made against him. A poll by JMC Analytics from Nov. 27 to Nov. 28 revealed 64 percent of Evangelicals said they would vote for Moore, a seven-point increase from earlier in the month. Even crazier, 39 percent of Evangelicals polled said they were more likely to support Moore after the allegations.

Evangelicals make up 58 percent of the Alabama Republican Party, according to the Public Religion Research Institute, making this data remarkably significant.

Evangelicals and the religious right at-large want to see the infusion of Christian principles and morality into American politics and government policy. They constantly chastise liberals and most of American culture for its lack of values. Yet they stand here today supporting a candidate who is drowning in sin. He maintains his Evangelical support despite preying on young girls and lying. It has exposed Moore’s Evangelical supporters for who they are: hypocrites. They have zero integrity. They claim to be our country’s moral majority, despite having no morals themselves.

Please spare me the argument that while Moore may not be perfect, the policies he will pursue in the Senate are the policies Evangelicals so ardently support, so supporting him still makes sense. But the ends don’t justify the means when the means stand so clearly in contrast to the values that you claim to espouse. How in good conscience can any Evangelical, or anyone who claims to have a value-system, vote for Roy Moore? They can’t.

The saddest part of this hypocrisy is that it isn’t surprising. Some polls showed national Evangelical support for Donald Trump during the election at as high as 80 percent. Like Moore, Trump is a sexual predator. He even admitted to it and bragged about it on tape. Still, Evangelical support did not waver. The hypocrisy existed then, exists now and will surely exist in the future. The supposed social value-focused Evangelical voter clearly has no values.

Ryan Steinberg is a sophomore majoring in political science.

Featured photo courtesy pixabay user congerdesign.