By Joey Kennedy
Alabama Political Reporter
I was heartened and encouraged by Time magazine’s Person of the Year. It’s one of those years where the person is persons.
One of those persons is my wife.
No, not Taylor Swift. Nor Alyssa Milano. Nor Rose McGowan. Nor Selma Blair.
Veronica Pike Kennedy. My wife. Whom I’m so proud of.
She, too, is a #metoo. She was spanked aggressively by a publisher at one of the newspapers she worked for. Hopefully, the reporters now looking into this string of spanking incidents at this newspaper will publish something soon. And we know Veronica wasn’t the only one.
They should. They should.
The abuse Veronica experienced at 22 years old was her second. The first happened when she was 6 years old, by a relative.
Veronica reported neither at the time. The first confused her and made her fear how her mother would react. The mother who physically abused her as a child.
The second would have caused her father to commit a murder, and she didn’t want her father to spend the rest of his life in prison.
But the abusers are real. And they abused. They were powerful men in her life. And she’s waited until now to tell her story.
If there is a hell, Roy Moore is going to hell.
The women who have accused him of sexually abusing them are credible, and they’re telling their stories now, and they’re not lying.
Roy Moore, the former Republican Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, who won’t address questions surrounding his abuse, is running for the U.S. Senate. The election is Tuesday, Dec. 12. His opponent is Democrat Doug Jones, with impeccable credentials, the prosecutor who convicted Ku Klux Klan members who killed four little girls in a church in Birmingham in 1963.
Doug Jones, a moderate Democrat who went after the bomber of an abortion clinic in Birmingham and put bad people in jail when he was a U.S. Attorney.
Doug Jones, who is a decent man, a man of God, a man who believes in equality for all.
In the real world, this wouldn’t even be a race. Doug Jones would win hands down.
But this is the Donald Trump America. A time when reality is suspended, and the facts don’t matter.
If there is a hell, Roy Moore will be in it.
Roy Moore, thrown off the state Supreme Court twice for defying federal orders. Roy Moore, a homophobe who doesn’t believe transgender Americans have rights. Roy Moore, who believes gay men and lesbian women shouldn’t be able to love who they love. Roy Moore, who is anti-women. Roy Moore, who is anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-everything decent.
And many Evangelicals in Alabama are supporting Moore, and there’s no explaining that away. Like during slavery, in the 1860s and before, they are on the wrong side of history. They are on the wrong side of right. They are on the wrong side of Jesus.
If there is a hell, Roy Moore is headed for it.
But the women who stepped forward, and continue to do so, like my wife, Veronica, are the Person of the Year. And Time magazine is absolutely right.
Men – and some women – must cease being sexual predators. There is no doubt that Roy Moore is one of them.
Joey Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize winner, writes a column every week for Alabama Political Reporter. Email: jkennedy@alreporter.com.
