HUNTSVILLE (AL)
Los Angeles Times
November 15, 2017
By Jenny Jarvie
When Kenneth Frost, a Baptist deacon, first heard that a woman had accused Roy Moore of sexual abuse, he was skeptical. Not only did the allegation stem from nearly 40 years ago, but Moore — a figure he admires and believes to be a man of God — denied the woman’s claims.
The 79-year-old Republican vowed to support Moore, whether or not he was guilty.
“I believe in innocent until proven guilty, but even if he’s guilty, I’ll back him all the way,” said Frost, a member of Macedonia Baptist Church in Ranburne, a town of about 400 in eastern Alabama. “I still feel he’s a Christian man — and nobody’s perfect.”
The thorny issue of Moore, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate who faces accusations of sexual assault weeks before voters go to the polls, was not on the agenda as hundreds of church leaders gathered at the Whitesburg Baptist Church here this week for the annual meeting of the Alabama Baptist State Convention.
Yet up and down corridors and inside meeting rooms, pastors and deacons grappled with what to make of the allegations from women who say Moore, 70, a Baptist and former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, sexually assaulted or attempted a relationship with them when they were teenagers.
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