Roy Moore is NOT a Pedophile!
Make no mistake about it. The majority of journalists have it wrong. Roy Moore is NOT a pedophile. Nor are the allegations against him merely about sexual misconduct.
Roy Moore is an ephebophile. That's a word I find harder to spell than to explain. Apparently, the same with Newsweek Magazine, where the spelling was recently inconsistent. Spelling it with a "d" instead of a "b" is no big deal, though I do find it annoying that spell checks do not routinely recognize the word anymore than many educators.
In this day and age, for average citizens not to know the difference between this term and pedophilia or sexual misconduct, however, is something I consider huge. For a full explanation, I encourage you to check out Newsweek.
While at least one of Moore's accusers was, at the age of her assault, only fourteen years old (one year under the strict definition of the term), an ephebophile is an abuser of minors who are still in their teens--a fact that seems to be flying over the heads of many people who insist on equating this behavior with the behavior that cost Al Frankton his honorable position. There is no comparison in the two!! The chance of permanent or long-term emotional disability is profound because of the added trauma of arrested development that coincides with abused adolescents. Please, please make that a part of the next adult conversation you have on this topic.
The sexual abuse of anyone at any age, whether sexual harassment or the abuse of minors, is a character issue. That's another fact that seems to be disregarded in so many conversations about the Alabama election going on as we speak. Why anyone would see it otherwise is beyond me!
Yet 55% of Alabamans do not think sexual abuse is a big issue when it comes to the election of public officials? This I just heard on MSNBC tonight. Really? In a state that considers sexual immorality, whether abusive or not, to be a very serious sin by the nature of the religious make-up of the state? How can this be? Could somebody please explain? For this is the question I was asking three decades ago--a question posed to my own colleagues, most who were quite theologically conservative. I just don't get it, same as I do not understand why, according to an article only yesterday in the Washington Post, Democratic women are 50% more likely to believe that sexual misconduct should be considered an important factor in selecting public officials than Republican women, who tend to be more theologically conservative.
If Roy Moore wins this election, we can thank white women, same as with the election of President Trump. It is the lack of solidarity, even to the point of not caring about the abuse of minors, that I emphasized as so disturbing, only last month in a Kansas Public Radio interview highlighting my most recent release Enlarging Boston's Spotlight: A Call for Courage, Integrity, and Institutional Transformation.
Folks, this is an issue of integrity--not just Roy Moore's or President Trump's, but the American public's integrity. Why isn't this being emphasized?
Seems to me, it's more important for conservative women to "keep women in their place" than it is to hold men accountable for grossly immoral behavior. Or maybe the abuse of minors is not considered grossly immoral. That seems to be where we are today--split still, even over the abuse of minors, blaming even teenager girls for being promiscuous. To frame it another way, do half of all Americans consider teenage girls to be equated as adults while men of power are equated as adolescent boys incapable of every growing up?
If so, Heaven help us with the mounting questions in view!
Roy Moore is an ephebophile. That's a word I find harder to spell than to explain. Apparently, the same with Newsweek Magazine, where the spelling was recently inconsistent. Spelling it with a "d" instead of a "b" is no big deal, though I do find it annoying that spell checks do not routinely recognize the word anymore than many educators.
In this day and age, for average citizens not to know the difference between this term and pedophilia or sexual misconduct, however, is something I consider huge. For a full explanation, I encourage you to check out Newsweek.
While at least one of Moore's accusers was, at the age of her assault, only fourteen years old (one year under the strict definition of the term), an ephebophile is an abuser of minors who are still in their teens--a fact that seems to be flying over the heads of many people who insist on equating this behavior with the behavior that cost Al Frankton his honorable position. There is no comparison in the two!! The chance of permanent or long-term emotional disability is profound because of the added trauma of arrested development that coincides with abused adolescents. Please, please make that a part of the next adult conversation you have on this topic.
The sexual abuse of anyone at any age, whether sexual harassment or the abuse of minors, is a character issue. That's another fact that seems to be disregarded in so many conversations about the Alabama election going on as we speak. Why anyone would see it otherwise is beyond me!
Yet 55% of Alabamans do not think sexual abuse is a big issue when it comes to the election of public officials? This I just heard on MSNBC tonight. Really? In a state that considers sexual immorality, whether abusive or not, to be a very serious sin by the nature of the religious make-up of the state? How can this be? Could somebody please explain? For this is the question I was asking three decades ago--a question posed to my own colleagues, most who were quite theologically conservative. I just don't get it, same as I do not understand why, according to an article only yesterday in the Washington Post, Democratic women are 50% more likely to believe that sexual misconduct should be considered an important factor in selecting public officials than Republican women, who tend to be more theologically conservative.
If Roy Moore wins this election, we can thank white women, same as with the election of President Trump. It is the lack of solidarity, even to the point of not caring about the abuse of minors, that I emphasized as so disturbing, only last month in a Kansas Public Radio interview highlighting my most recent release Enlarging Boston's Spotlight: A Call for Courage, Integrity, and Institutional Transformation.
Folks, this is an issue of integrity--not just Roy Moore's or President Trump's, but the American public's integrity. Why isn't this being emphasized?
Seems to me, it's more important for conservative women to "keep women in their place" than it is to hold men accountable for grossly immoral behavior. Or maybe the abuse of minors is not considered grossly immoral. That seems to be where we are today--split still, even over the abuse of minors, blaming even teenager girls for being promiscuous. To frame it another way, do half of all Americans consider teenage girls to be equated as adults while men of power are equated as adolescent boys incapable of every growing up?
If so, Heaven help us with the mounting questions in view!
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