I occasionally will vary from EA’s usual practice of publishing outstanding comments as Comments Of The Day to select one of the comments that is illuminating in a different way. This one, for example. Despite the Washington Post’s story featuring four romantic targets of Roy Moore from when he was a thirtyish Assistant DA who ranged from 18 to (oh-oh) 14, many of Moore’s conservative, evangelical, anti-gay, anti-US Supreme Court fans in Alabama…

….don’t seem fazed a bit. How can this be? The comment by Kat gives us a troubling glimpse into a) the kind of reasoning that leads to incompetents like Moore reaching high elected office; b) the typical level of discourse in the comments of most blogs and websites; c) the comments that I typically veto as not adding anything to the discussion here, and d) the end product of the U.S. public school system.

Here is Kat’s Comment of the Day, and yes, I sure as shootin’ will be back at the end…

Are you serious it has to be true because Moore is a bad guy why because he has Ethics and a Christian, give me a break. If the allegations are true that this girl has accuse pastors of the same thing then truth will come out! And to be credible I don’t believe her to be credible whatsoever if this horrible thing happened to her at 14 you don’t wait 38 years to say anything you tell your parents right away you tell the school made an interest in the other women all work for the Democrats and Hillary. I’ve seen many allegations against other Republicans come to be false! I am a woman I know women can say anything doesn’t mean it’s true ! To say you believe this just because you don’t like the guy try actually finding some evidence that’s what I noticed this country doesn’t do it believes any stupid thing someone says without actual any evidence and that’s dangerous ! When I find is not credible if someone waits for women wait until the month before the election and come out with us for 38 years no one says anything give me a break !

***

I’m back!

I know that a comment written like this is res ipsa loquitur, and probably need no rebuttal. Still, a couple of points scream to be made.

1 The proclivity of the ostentatiously religious to engage in immoral sexual activity is a matter of record. That Moore is religious doesn’t make him more or less believable in his denials.

2. Roy Moore’s ethics are incomprehensible. This is one of main reasons he was kicked off the bench twice. When someone exhibits the unethical instincts of Roy Moore, this does affect his credibility negatively.

3. The conservative attempts to discredit the former 14-year old, primarily come from the Gateway Pundit, an Ethics Alarms Unethical Website Of The Month that has even less credibility than Roy Moore. It says,

“Corfman has been divorced three times, filed for bankruptcy three times and has reportedly “claimed several pastors at various churches made sexual advances at her.”

Her marital and financial problems do not suggest that she is not credible. The claim about her accusing pastors is unsourced: we are told that this “appears on Moore’s Facebook page.”  I would never assume such accusations were unjustified. The pastor at my own church growing up was fired for making sexual advances to several women. My father-in-law, a veteran Methodist minister, related the cases of several colleagues who earned such accusations.

4.  We have seen that many victims of sexual assault wait a long time before coming forward. As discussed at length at Ethics Alarms, I find the practice is often unfair and subject to abuse, especially after so many years. However, the fact that a victim has waited a long time doesn’t mean that the accusation itself is false.

5. I doubt that Leigh Corfman, when she was 14, understood how wrong Moore’s conduct was. Her mother had apparently allowed her to go on a date with a middle aged man.

6. No, “all the women; did not “work for Hillary.” One apparently did, and that is, as discussed in the previous post, completely irrelevant. It suggests no bias against Moore whatsoever.

7. The fact that there have been other false allegations by women doesn’t mean that allegations by women are presumptively false.  It means that any allegation or accusation, by man or women, should be judged on its merits, and supported by evidence.

8.  So far, the evidence suggests that Moore’s accusers are truthful. Moore’s contradictory, evasive responses to Sean Hannity made it pretty clear that he sought relationships with teens while he was an assistant district attorney.  This doesn’t make him a criminal (his supposed touching of the 14-year old would), but it does make him creepy and strange. A colleague of Moore’s has confirmed to The Hill that it was “common knowledge” that Moore dated teens.

9. I don’t believe the four women because I don’t “like” Moore. I don’t believe Moore because he’s a zealot, an egomaniac, a bigot, appears to lack integrity and respect for the law, and isn’t very bright. But even if every one of the women were revealed as Russian agents, it wouldn’t change the fact that Roy Moore is one of three or four most disgraceful candidates for the U.S. Senate offered by any party in any state. Making an argument to the contrary, as Kat does, is signature significance for someone whose right  to vote is a blight on competent democracy.

10. “Give me a break” is not an argument, though it may be her best one.

11. Punctuation and the ability to write standard English sentences is a necessary skill if one’s opinions are to be taken seriously.