By Chip Brownlee
Alabama Political Reporter
A petition urging Amazon to relabel a controversial book, co-authored by Roy Moore, which included a lecture that states women shouldn’t run for public office, has reached more than 17,000 signatures on an online petition site.
The petition calls on Amazon — which labeled the book and its accompanying study course as a “textbook — to relabel the work as something else other than a “textbook.” The study course, titled “Law and Government: An Introductory Study Course,” is still for sale on Amazon.
“Everyone has the right to any idea they want, but Amazon has the responsibility to categorize items in an accurate and responsible way. Selling this at all is questionable. Selling it as a textbook is just wrong,” the organizer of the petition, Rebecca Gerber, wrote. “Not only is this stupid and sexist, it’s actually extremely harmful. Research shows that having gender parity in politics and boardrooms actually significantly improves the way any group functions. So it’s not only offensive, it’s actually an idea that can harm our country a lot.”
Moore’s name was not attributed to the portion of the study that advocates against women in leadership positions, but he authored another lesson in the course that primarily focused on the Constitution and the courts. He was also listed as a featured speaker in the course’s accompanying audio series.
Moore’s campaign has said the former Alabama chief justice is not against women holding public office and that Moore has supported “constitutional conservatives – both men and women – for decades and will continue to do so.”
“Judge Moore believes that men and women are created equal by God and has never suggested or believed that women are unqualified for public office,” the statement issued to WBRC said.
The course, authored by Moore, Doug Phillips, Dr. Joseph Morecraft and Dr. Paul Jehle, includes a lecture from Immanuel Free Reformed Church elder William Einwechter entitled, “What the Bible Says About Female Magistrates.”
“She’s not a judge. She’s a woman. Created by God, Glorious in her place and in her conduct and in her role,” Einwechter said, according to a Think Progress report last week. “Nothing is said in scripture that supports the notion that she is qualified or called to be a civil magistrate.”
The curriculum was a product of a now-defunct Texas evangelical organization headed by Phillips. The organization taught “Biblical patriarchy,” which supports strict, unequal gender roles. The organization’s website also attacks feminism as a “false ideology that has bred false doctrine in the church.” Moore served as part of the Vision Forum’s “Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy” faculty.
The Witherspoon School was actually four-day crash courses that taught only men about the relationship between the Bible, law and liberty.
Einwechter goes on to say that feminism is a “radical agenda” and women shouldn’t hold public office and Christians have a moral obligation not to vote for a woman, regardless of her political ideology.
