Anti-gay, anti-choice pseudo-Christian Pastor “Flip” Benham likes to defend accused child molester Roy Moore by conjuring up new reasons why it’s okay for Moore to pursue and sexually abuse teenage girls. The latest excuse given to Moore by a pastor suggests Moore had not choice. Older women just didn’t have the “purity” of young girls. He actually said it.
Can’t help wonder if Benham, Moore and their pseudo-Christian Republican pals including Trump ever ask themselves “What would Jesus do?” Of course they wouldn’t because they know the answer (and Trump has probably never even read the Bible, other than to have some of his staff give him passages to take out of context for speeches to Christian church conferences.
Michael Stone with Patheos excerpted Benham remarks from a recent interview with Right Wing Watch.
“I think that, number one, you need to understand, 40 years ago, what the Sitz im Leben was like in Alabama. Judge Roy Moore graduated from West Point and then went on into the service, served in Vietnam and then came back and was in law school. All of the ladies, or many of the ladies that he possibly could have married were not available then, they were already married, maybe, somewhere.
So he looked in a different direction and always with the [permission of the] parents of younger ladies … He did that because there is something about a purity of a young woman, there is something that is good, that’s true, that’s straight and he looked for that.”
It was incredibly hard for me to even block quote Beham’s words. To think this piece of shit calls himself a Christian is beyond what most Christians who actually follow the words of Christ can imagine. And then to think this man has a congregation where he preaches his bile is, well—haunting.
Here is the 3 ½-minute audio clip from Right Wing Watch of Roy Moore’s interview. Note how disgustingly hard it is for Benham to admit that it’s not okay for a grown man to date a 10-year-old girl, even with the parents permission...
Yet, like with Trump, most of the GOP and Republicans and pseudo-Christian leaders use religion to let certain things and certain people slide to meet their own personal and conservative needs/agendas. Not only is this a form of blasphemy, but it’s also indirectly committing the same crime their support and/or their affiliation with Moore.
America’s 39th President and man of real Christian faith, Jimmy Carter, puts it all together in two sentences from his op-ed “Losing My Religion For Equality.”
“The truth is that male religious leaders have had—and still have an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.” -Jimmy Carter
And isn’t that what it boils down to? Thank you to Jimmy Carter and the the real Christians who are speaking out against religious hypocrisy.
If you or someone you know is, or has ever been, a victim of rape/sexual assault, it’s never too late to seek help. You can find free support via the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800.656.HOPE (4673) and/or by visiting the Rape, Abuse Incest National Network/RAINN.org website online. If you are in immediate danger, please call 911. You do not have to live with horror, guilt, and/or shame. If you can hold on to one thing, remember this—It was not your fault.
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