Dear Joel,

There is reason to cheer the “Big” Luther Strange lost the Alabama Senate primary. Strange was endorsed by Trump (if Trump’s rambling and solipsistic speech to Alabama voters this Friday could be considered an “endorsement”), and we need for Republicans at the state level to understand that falling in line behind Trump is a losing proposition.

But then we get Roy Moore.

I’ve written about Moore before, but, for those who want the sum of it: Moore believes that all our rights and laws ONLY come from God, by which I mean a Judeo-Christian God, by which I really mean a born again Protestant God who only reads the Bible in the KJV, just as Jesus wrote it.

Despite having gone to law school, where I’m sure they teach something about the history of our legal system, Moore sees our laws as deriving from the Bible (not English common law, as legal historians note). Therefore, anyone who does not believe in the Bible doesn’t have those rights. Muslims and atheists don’t have freedom of religion because they don’t believe in the God who gives them freedom of religion. The only people who have religious freedom are those Christians and Jews (who are just pre-Christians in Moore’s kind of religion).

Above, former Alabama Supreme Court Justice, whose been removed from the bench TWICE, shows off his little pistol at a campaign rally to prove to voters that he’s a Second Amendment supporter. 

Moore goes farther, though: Because our laws come FROM God, they can never go ABOVE God. Therefore, any law (as Moore understands it) that might contradict the Bible (as Moore understands it) is invalid.

We can start to imagine where this goes: the mandatory practice of Christian traditions and rituals, from school prayer and Bible reading onward. (Can he make us say “Merry Christmas,” as Trump promised would happen?) The outlawing of all non-marital sex. Of contraception. (Abortion is an obvious target for Moore.) Of liquor stores and Sunday sales and the teaching of evolution and climate science and swearing in public.

For those who want a primer on Moore’s kind of theo-political activism, check out Sara Diamond’s now classic Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. 

Rebecca