GOP has become the party of Roy Moore

WASHINGTON — It is hard to fathom that even the few Republican politicians who resisted endorsing Donald Trump for president find it beyond their ability to denounce Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama. And make no mistake, Moore is worse than Trump. By a lot.

This is a man who said, "Homosexual conduct should be illegal, yes." Comparing it to bestiality, he said, "It is a moral precept upon which this country was founded." Presumably he meant that criminalizing homosexuality is a precept upon which the United States is founded, which would still be news to any sentient human being.

Moore has proclaimed, "Now we have blacks and whites fighting, reds and yellows fighting, Democrats and Republicans fighting, men and women fighting. What's going to unite us? What's going to bring us back together? A president? A Congress? No. It's going to be God."

[Conservative firebrand defeats Trump pick in Alabama Senate primary]

He has displayed crude bigotry against Muslims. "False religions like Islam who teach that you must worship this way are completely opposite with what our First Amendment stands for," Moore argued.

He has suggested 9/11 was the result of America's ungodliness. "If you think that's coincidence, if you go to verse 25, 'there should be up on every high mountain and upon every hill rivers and streams of water in the day of the great slaughter when the towers will fall,'" he said in February. "You know, we've suffered a lot in this country. Just maybe, because we've distanced ourselves from the one that has it within his hands to heal this land."

He is an avowed birther — still.

His foundation to defend the First Amendment (no, really) has accepted $1,000 from a neo-Nazi, white supremacist. Speaking of that foundation, he got huge salaries, which he previously denied, from the Foundation for Moral Law. The Post reported:

"Former Alabama judge Roy Moore, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, once said publicly that he did not take a 'regular salary' from the small charity he founded to promote Christian values because he did not want to be a financial burden.

"But privately, Moore had arranged to receive a salary of $180,000 a year for part-time work at the Foundation for Moral Law, internal charity documents show. He collected more than $1 million as president from 2007 to 2012, compensation that far surpassed what the group disclosed in its public tax filings most of those years."

Beyond his offensive and bigoted comments, he has repeatedly shown that he is unwilling to uphold the Constitution. CNN recounts:

"In the 1990s, Moore had done legal battle over a wooden 'Ten Commandments' plaque in his courtroom. But after taking over as chief justice, he escalated – planting a granite monument to the commandments, weighing in at more than 5,000 pounds, inside the state supreme court building."

On Wednesday, he opined that NFL athletes who knelt during the national anthem were breaking the law. It's hard to imagine how an ex-judge (albeit a disgraced one) could opine that the ultimate expression of free speech is illegal.

Yet self-styled "constitutional conservatives" Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., have endorsed Moore. "Judge Roy Moore has spent a lifetime defending and standing up for the Constitution while fighting for the people of Alabama," said Paul. "We need more people in Washington, D.C. that will stand on principle and defend the Constitution. . . . I look forward to welcoming him to the Senate very soon," said Paul, who apparently thinks that defying the Constitution is the same as defending it.

Lee was at least candid that he puts partisan loyalty first. "If there was ever a time to ensure that Republicans maintain a seat in the United States Senate, it is now," Lee said. "That is why I am proudly endorsing Judge Roy Moore for United States Senate. Alabamians have the chance to send a proven, conservative fighter to the United States Senate and I am more than ready to welcome a trusted ally." It's a peculiar choice for a member of the Church of Latter-day Saints who has decried religious bigotry.

As bad as this glaring hypocrisy is, the silence of many Republicans who should know better reveals the depth to which the GOP has descended. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., who refrained from endorsing Trump, has been silent about Moore.

Understand that the entire apparatus of the GOP – its majority leader in the Senate, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, etc. – stands foursquare behind Moore. A party willing to stand behind Trump or Moore is a party that presumably would stand behind David Duke or Richard Spencer. It's a party without a soul or decency, a party that puts partisanship above country and is willing to indulge bigots and constitutional idiots. It is quite simply irredeemable.

Jennifer Rubin is a Washington Post columnist. She writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com.