Roy Moore’s Conservative Values
Tuesday sure was exciting. Doug Jones won a US Senate seat in the “Red State†of Alabama as a Democrat. His opponent, Roy Moore, had the backing of President Donald Trump. Moore also claimed to have the backing of God, but after his loss, I’m not so sure. What could possibly have gone wrong?
Much of the media attention has been focused on accusations of Roy Moore’s taste for young girls. While credible, these accusations were never proven in a court of law, and many Alabama voters refused to believe them. Instead, Moore’s supporters pointed to his conservative values.
What were these values?
Roy Moore was no stranger to politics or the law. Twice Alabama had removed him from the state’s Supreme Court. Moore had refused to obey a Federal Court order. It required him to remove a religious display on government property. His violation of the First Amendment was strange because Moore favored the first ten amendments to the constitution, but he wanted to get rid of all the rest. He blamed America’s current problems on those additional amendments.
Moore’s conservative values then included getting rid of the anti-slavery amendment, the voting rights amendment and the equal rights amendment. I know conservative politicians often talk about rolling back federal regulations, but do we really want to allow the return of the “good old days� From my professional experience, I can tell you that they weren’t so good for blacks, women or the poor.  There wasn’t even a real middle class back then.
Moore didn’t hide these positions. They were central to his political identity. While trying to deflect pedophilia charges, Moore laid out his conservative version of history. He said America started going downhill in 1965 when America created “new rights.â€Â In 1964 the Federal government passed the Civil Rights Act and then followed the next year with the Voting Rights Act.
These laws radically changed the county, opening up economic and political opportunities for women and other minorities. Do conservatives really believe these laws hurt America? Are we really worse off as a nation because women and minorities now have equal rights?
It shouldn’t surprise anyone then that the majority of Alabama voters refused to support him based on his conservative values. Hopefully, we can all agree, liberal or conservative, that the Federal Government did the right thing by adding these amendments. All men and women are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.  Returning to the “Original Intent†of the Constitution is not an option. Liberty and justice is for all of us, nor a chosen few.
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