The Bible may not have specified age restrictions on romantic and sexual relationships, but it does have a commandment that states: Thou shalt not lie. Or will the Evangelicals defending him explicitly disregard the 10 Commandments now too?
He actually didn't deny dating or approaching young girls in his early 30s when asked explicitly about it on Hannity. He just deflected and made non-denial denials.
I listened to that Hannity interview and commented in another thread in another part of the forum here how both the details of the WaPo article could make many evangelical Christian voters highly suspicious of the claim that he had molested a 14 year old. I repost it here as I think it answers this point you raise:
My observation would be that firstly they would be unlikely to believe the fourth story as the pattern of behaviour in that story is so entirely different from the pattern of behaviour in the other three and that furthermore the pattern of behaviour in the other three cases is not only not unChristian but is in fact highly Christian and highly ethical.
Consider first that the age of consent in Alabama at which someone is judged capable of consenting to sex and marriage is 16 in Alabama. You might think that too low but that's not what Alabama law contends. I suspect that some of you might think that the age of consent for sex ought not be the same as the age of consent for marriage, i.e. that it should be both socially and legally accepted and even encouraged that young people should be sexually active for some years before getting married and starting a family. This is of course quite contrary to the traditional Christian ethics that Moore so strongly advocates. That ethics teaches strict chastity before marriage and strict faithfulness within it.
In three of the accounts Moore is said to have behaved in an utterly proper way in this respect. They all said that he always asked the parent's consent to court her daughter and respected their authority in doing so. That is very much in line with traditional Christian teaching. Furthermore he behaved in an entirely chaste and rather courtly manner, doing no more than kissing and cuddling, which the ethical code followed by evangelicals proclaims is all any Christian man is permitted to do with anyone who is not his wife.
Whilst most parents would suspect a man in his early thirties wanting to date a young woman in her late teens its important to remember the cause of this suspicion. The cause is that they would be worried that the man was looking for a mere mistress to take advantage of and then discard. It is very clear from the cases described of the two women that he dated that he was not looking for a mere mistress but for a wife, and by all accounts he has been a devoted and faithful husband so its no wonder that the mothers of those two girls thought that he would make a great son in law.
You compare that to the fourth case where the pattern of behaviour is totally different. In this case he is described as behaving in a manipulative and abusive way towards a child, seeking out an underage child, molesting her, acting in a way that was exploitative, dishonest and unchaste. That is so completely out of character with the other stories and with everything else known about Moore that it makes it hard to believe.
If you just look at the other three cases Moore behaved in a way that was not only not immoral but was in fact highly ethical. Alabama Evangelicals may very well then see this as a case where someone who not only preaches but practises a strict Christian code of sexual ethics and is being persecuted and slandered for it by a GOP establishment that is full of people who are admitted adulterers and who otherwise fall short of the Christian ethical ideal.
