The Alabama Senate race was mostly about God and the gods. The election of Doug Jones over Roy Moore shows that, though God and the gods were often confused, Alabamians declared by a very slight margin that God may not be white.

Some things die hard. In America, no core convictions die harder than 1) white supremacy, white superiority, white exceptionalism, and 2) male supremacy, male superiority, male exceptionalism.  It’s not just in Alabama. It’s not just in the mind of Roy Moore. It elected a president who, like Roy Moore, dismisses all claims of sexual harassment as a partisan media hoax, supported Moore’s candidacy, and issues a tweet that suggests Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has called for his resignation, is what misogynists see as the only alternative to the Virgin Mary.

Doug Jones beat Roy Moore yesterday by a hair. But, as a defiant Roy Moore rightly said, it’s not over. Nor will it be over if and when the President resigns or is successfully impeached and removed from office.

Core cultural convictions  — gods — don’t die so easily. They go underground, as they did during the eight years of the Obama Presidency, until they spy another opening to claim their turf.

Through it all the choice is to reach up to the God who is above and beyond the dying gods of gender, racial, religious, cultural, and national exceptionalism, or remain their prey.

• Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, December 13, 2017.