BostonGlobe | “I don’t know how much these women are getting paid, but I can only
believe they’re getting a healthy sum,” said pastor Earl Wise, a Moore
supporter from Millbrook, Ala.
Wise said he would support Moore
even if the allegations were true and the candidate was proved to have
sexually molested teenage girls and women.
“There ought to be a
statute of limitations on this stuff,” Wise said. “How these gals came
up with this, I don’t know. They must have had some sweet dreams
somewhere down the line.
“Plus,” he added, “there are some 14-year-olds, who, the way they look, could pass for 20.”
For
40 years, “these women didn’t say a word. They were cool as a
cucumber,” said pastor Franklin Raddish, a Baptist minister from South
Carolina and a Moore supporter.
“You’re asking me to believe them,’’ Raddish said, “when their own
mother didn’t have enough red blood in her to . . . go and report this?
Come on.”
The statements are indicative of a broader shift among conservative
evangelicals — and particularly white evangelicals. Long thought of as a
voting bloc that demanded their lawmakers to be pious and spiritual,
some are now even more accepting of a lawmaker’s personal indiscretions
than the average American, polling data indicate.
Eighty percent
of white conservative evangelicals voted for Trump, according to 2016
election exit polls, even after the infamous “Access Hollywood’’ tape
and the numerous allegations from women who said that he sexually
assaulted them.
Six years ago, just 30 percent of white
evangelical Protestants believed an elected official “who commits an
immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and
fulfill their duties” as a public servant, according to The Public
Religion Research Institute, a nonprofit polling firm focused on faith
issues.
