Ever since Roy Moore was first accused of molesting women and pursuing girls young enough to be his daughters, we’ve heard all manner of defenses from both Moore and his supporters. Moore himself has maintained the whole thing is “FAKE NEWS!” His supporters claim that what really matters is keeping his babykilling librul Democrat challenger, Doug Jones, out of Jeff Sessions’ former Senate seat.
But one religious right luminary has offered what may be the most bizarre defense of all. He’d have you believe that it’s perfectly fine for Moore to lie about what he did because he’s furthering the cause of Jesus Christ.
Even by religious right standards, Dave Daubenmire is out there. He thinks women have no business running for office and that women’s sports are a breeding ground for gays and lesbians. He once called for Jerry Brown to be lynched, and pitched a fit when called on it.
But even with this history, the manner in which he came to Moore’s defense on Tuesday’s edition of his “Pass the Salt” webcast hiked eyebrows into hairlines. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Moore spent most of the early part of Tuesday’s show reflecting on Matthew 10:16–“Be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.” It threw him for awhile, since he usually associated serpents with the devil. He had some time to think about it, and believed that God was telling us how to operate in a “fallen world.” As he saw it, God was telling us to look at how the serpent operates, and be willing to “use some of the same techniques he does”–but use wisdom in doing so.
That led Daubenmire to turn to God’s commandment not to lie. However, he reminded us that the King James Version says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”–that is, a close relative or friend. He believed it meant lying was fine in order to protect a relative. Lying to your neighbor for your own advancement, however, is a sin. That led him to call out those skittish about voting for Moore due to the allegations against him.
“When I hear people say, ‘Well, Judge Moore is not worthy of the office if he’s lying about what he did,’ I want to grab ’em and I want to slap ’em upside the stinking head because Judge Moore is trying to infiltrate an ungodly system. And Judge Moore, the stakes in this campaign are so great for the cause of Christ and Judge Moore is being lambasted by the holier-than-thou Christians who think it says we can never lie. And that is not what that says! In fact, it’s best to lie if it advances the Kingdom of God. There, I said it.”
Daubenmire was speaking in code. He’s saying that since Moore has conservative values and is helping the cause of Christ, so it’s fine for him to lie about whether or not he’s a pervert. This sounds a lot like the line the religious right used to defend Trump. So what if he mocks the disabled and revels in degrading women? None of that mattered as much as ending abortion and marriage equality.
I’ve heard this line before. As many longtime readers know, back in my days at the University of North Carolina, I was suckered into joining a hyperabusive and controlling campus ministry in my freshman year. They had no qualms about deceiving people about who they really were so as not to scare people away–presumably to pull in people like me, who would never otherwise fall in with a hypercharismatic outfit.
Early in my sophomore year, I discovered that this ministry’s mother church had once been the Carolina chapter of Maranatha Campus Ministries, one of the more notorious “campus cults” from the 1980s. But when I told my former “brothers” and “sisters” about this, their response was basically, “So what?” All that mattered was that people were being saved.
Sound familiar? That mentality is why a man who has been credibly accused of sexual assault by nine women, with multiple eyewitnesses, could even talk about going to the Senate.
(featured image courtesy Daubenmire’s Facebook)
