Roy Moore allegations prompt reflections on fundamentalist culture in which some Christian men date

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Roy Moore allegations prompt reflections on fundamentalist culture in which some Christian men date teens

By Julie Zauzmer November 13 at 1:57 PM

When Roy Moore, then 34 years old, asked 17-year-old Debbie Wesson Gibson whether she would date him, Gibson asked her mother what she would think.

According to The Washington Post’s investigation into Moore’s alleged pursuit of teenage girls, which was published Thursday, Gibson’s mother replied, “I’d say you were the luckiest girl in the world.”

That attitude of encouraging teenage girls to date older men, rather than shielding girls from men’s advances, sounded familiar to some people who read the Post story that has shaken Moore’s bid for the U.S. Senate.

-snip-

That courtship of underage girls is especially common in conservative religious communities.

“We should probably talk about how there is a segment of evangelicalism and home-school culture where the only thing Roy Moore did wrong was initiating sexual contact outside of marriage. 14 year old girls courting adult men isn’t entirely uncommon,” Kathryn Brightbill, who works for the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, tweeted Friday, prompting a flurry of responses from other people who also had watched teenagers date much older Christian men.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/11/13/roy-moore-allegations-prompt-reflections-on-fundamentalist-culture-in-which-some-christian-men-date-teens/

[Corvo Bianco]

1. Argument: Warren Jeffs married tons of kids

What's the big deal

[CatMor]

2. How very sad.......

teenage girls should be with their peers having fun. What is wrong with these so called Christians. They are sick in the head.

[AJT]

3. Girls/women are good for fulfilling home duties such as breeding, taking care of children

homemaking and keeping her husband satisfied. This is true in all fundamentalist religious practices. The younger the girl starts the better. At the home of her parents she is only another mouth to feed.

[enough]

4. It's interesting how this attitude is found in so many fundamentalist cultures,

across many religions. In fact you could say it is one of the bedrock principles of fundamentalist religion.

[Act_of_Reparation]

5. Marital norms are transmitted intergenerationally from parents to children.

The more traditional (read: conservative) the culture, the more likely children are to follow in their parents' footsteps.

Sociologists Uecker and Stokes published a study on early marriage back in 2008 that is definitely worth a read. You can find it here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20305796. The full article should be free on PubMed.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. One wonders where oh where they might get these ideas...

[MineralMan]

7. In patriarchal cultures, old men decide.

If they like young girls, they decide that's OK. That's why.

[keithbvadu2]

8. "14 year old girls courting adult men isnt entirely uncommon,

"14 year old girls courting adult men isn’t entirely uncommon,”

That makes the child the 'aggressor'.

A common rationale for pedophiles.