Republican Women in Alabama Sound Off on Roy Moore
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/republican-women-in-alabama-sound-off-on-moore
On Wednesday evening, ThinkProgress reported that Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for Alabama’s open Senate seat, co-authored a 2011 textbook called “Law and Government: An Introductory Study Course.” The book’s Amazon page, which includes a single rating, of five stars, states that the book “provides an understanding of today’s legal, moral, and ethical issues of law and government.” One of its subjects is the appropriate role of women in society. As ThinkProgress notes, the book, which consists of lectures by several men, “instructs students that women should not be permitted to run for elected office. If women do run for office, the course argues, people have a moral obligation not to vote for them.” Additionally, the book criticizes the women’s-suffrage movement. Another of its authors is Doug Phillips, a proponent of so-called Biblical patriarchy who resigned from Vision Forum—a now-defunct evangelical organization, which helped produce the textbook—after admitting to an affair with a girl who later filed a suit alleging that Phillips began grooming her for sexual abuse when she was fifteen.
On Thursday, a spokesperson for Moore told The Washingtonian that “Judge Moore has never stated or believed that women are unqualified for public office.” I spent much of yesterday speaking with Republican women in Alabama who either have worked or continue to work for conservative causes and candidates. I asked them how Moore’s connection to the Vision Forum textbook could affect the support he receives in the December 12th election, which recent polls give him an edge to win over the Democrat, Doug Jones. (Jones had previously surged ahead in some polling, partly on the strength of female support, but his momentum seems to have ebbed.) Most of the women answered on the record, despite the negative repercussions that doing so could have on their party standing. Elizabeth BeShears is a political-communications consultant based in Birmingham. “In Alabama, we talk all the time about how, historically, the men run but the women are the ones who get them elected,” BeShears told me. “As a woman who has worked hard to get Republicans elected to office, at all levels in the state, it’s extremely worrying to me to know that somebody who’s supposed to represent us at one of the highest levels in the country doesn’t think I’m good enough to serve in any capacity in political leadership.”...
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