I have a 14-year-old daughter. If I caught Roy Moore doing what was alleged, for starters I would kick him where it counts. That said, I don’t think it’s wrong to vote for Moore.
I am going to argue for the very unpopular, even shocking, view that, even if Roy Moore did what he is accused of doing, Alabamans are within their rights to vote for him, and they shouldn’t let Democrats and Never Trumpers shame them into not voting.
Here is one thing we know and should admit from the start: in his early thirties, Moore had a penchant for dating teenagers. Apparently, this was not an uncommon occurrence during this time. In fact, this practice has a long history and is not without some merit if one wants to raise a large family.
To have a large family, the wife must start having kids when she is young. The husband needs to be well-established and able to support the family, in which case he will typically need to marry when older. Consider Keith Burgess-Jackson’s (philosophy professor at UT Arlington) account of his own grandparents:
What’s the big deal about a 32-year-old man courting a 14-year-old girl? My maternal grandmother was 15 years old when she married and 16 years old when she conceived her first child. Her husband was 41 and 42. They had 10 children during the next 20 years. This was normal back then. I’m sure it was normal in Alabama 40 years ago as well. The age of consent in Alabama even today is 16 (with parental consent)…I’m sick to death of people imposing their own moral standards on people of the past, whether it’s Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, George Armstrong Custer, Martin Luther King Jr, or Roy Moore.
Times have changed. But, like it or not, four decades ago Moore dated teenagers (even his wife is 14 years younger than he).
Read the rest from Tully Borland HERE at The Federalist.
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