“Alabama candidate Roy Moore said that children were massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School because Americans have ‘forgotten the law of God,’ according to footage that resurfaced this week,” nypost.com reports. “Video found by CNN was republished after Moore beat his fellow conservative Luther Strange in the Republican primary to represent the Southern state in the U.S. Senate.” Strangely . . .
the video in question — posted by the wedding and corporate videographers at Atlanta’s Studio 25 productions — has disappeared down the YouTube memory hole. nypost.com presents this quote as the money shot from the now missing video:
“You wonder why we’re having problems in Newtown, Connecticut? All across our country with killing, stealing, committing adultery,” Moore told the First Baptist Church of Guin in an undated clip. “Because we’ve forgotten the law of God.”
CNN’s online account of Mr. Moore’s remarks — which contains the “video removed by user” YouTube link — doesn’t contain any reference to Sandy Hook. It offers a different, less inflammatory version of the key part of the now deleted video.
“You wonder why we’re having shootings, and killings here in 2017? Because we’ve asked for it,” Moore said. “We’ve taken God out of everything. We’ve taken prayer out of school, we’ve taken prayer out of council meetings.”
Back at nypost.com, we learn that Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy Tweeted his disgust at Moore’s [alleged] comment connecting godlessness with the attack on Sandy Hook.
“Here Roy Moore says that the Newtown community is to blame for the Sandy Hook School massacre bc they weren’t following “God’s law.” Sick,” Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, posted on Twitter.
Moore has not publicly addressed the content of the video. In any case, we know that the responsibility for the Sandy Hook attack rests squarely on the shoulders of one Adam Lanza.
AND the school administrators who ignored and isolated Mr. Lanza, despite incontrovertible evidence that he was deeply disturbed (letting him remain enrolled as a student even though he was never in school).
AND Lanza’s mother, who allowed her son to bunker in her basement for weeks on end without any human contact or supervision (she left his meals at the door). Who took her mentally ill son, an anorexic teenager whose basement lair was plastered with news clippings of mass shootings, to the gun range.
AND Lanza’s father, who cut off all contact with, and thus responsibility for, his son.
Whether or not their action and inaction somehow reflects an inability to “follow God’s law” depends on your belief in God and, if so, what you consider His law to be. Meanwhile, Mr. Moore’s wider point — that shootings and killings show a lack of religiosity — seems innocuous enough. Doesn’t it?