Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore likes to deal with far-flung hypotheticals, especially when it comes to same-sex marriage.

For instance, could recognizing same-sex marriage lead to incest and polygamy?

"Do they stop with one man and one man or one woman and one woman, or do they go to multiple marriages?" he said on Good Morning America. "Or do they go to marriages between men and their daughters or women and their sons?"

It's a fun pastime for the homophobic crowd. Just ask Birmingham street preacher Cedric Hatcher, who told the Birmingham City Council that same-sex marriage will lead to men and marrying dogs, snakes, cockroaches, and even brooms and mops.

All of y'all out there waiting to marry household cleaning supplies, your day is just around the corner.

So while we're playing the What-If Game, let me throw another hypothetical out there: What does Roy Moore and his followers breathing fire and brimstone on national television do for Alabama's economic development potential?

Let's go one what-if further.

According to the Wall Street Journal and every other media outlet that hyperventilates over the next iPhone, Apple is planning to manufacture an electric self-driving car.

Of course, they'll need a place to build it, right?

Not the Spokesman We Need: Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore wants to make the state hostile to LGBT rights. (File photo)

And where can you build a car?

A Detroit resurgence makes for good Super Bowl commercials, but practically speaking, it's a sack full of nightmares.

China comes with lots of cheap labor, but the logistics of shipping cars probably rules out Foxconn sweatshops rolling out iCars.

Nope. When it comes to making cars in the U.S., there's no place like Sweet Home Alabama.

After all, it's Apple CEO Tim Cook's sweet home, too. The Robertsdale native grew up here and attended Auburn University before rising to become the highest profile Fortune 500 executive.

But, as Cook's predecessor used to tease, there's one more thing.

He's gay.

Cook had never really kept his sexual orientation a secret, but he never made an issue out of it, either, until last year. Speaking at his induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor, Cook recounted how Alabama had resisted giving equal rights and protections to African-Americans and he criticized the state for moving slowly again to recognize LGBT rights.

"As a state, we took too long to steps toward equality," he said. "We were too slow on equality for African-Americans. We were too slow on interracial marriage, and we are still too slow for the equality for the LGBT community."

Since then, Cook has helped fund an $8.5 million initiative through the Human Rights Campaign to promote LGBT rights in Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas.

Throughout the current court battle to legalize same sex marriage in Alabama, HRC has been squarely on one side.

And Roy Moore, and everything he represents, has been on the other.

Would Cook kill a car deal in Alabama out of spite? I doubt it, but that's not the point. LGBT rights isn't just a human rights issue anymore. It's an economic development issue. Increasingly, it's a test for where big companies can feel comfortable setting up shop.

And Alabama is failing that test.

If Apple did want to build cars in Alabama, how does it square its company's values and its brand with the vitriol our chief justice puts displays on national television.

The good news is that we've been here before, and last time, Alabama did the right thing.

When the state first wooed Mercedes to Alabama in the early 1990s, there was a similar symbolic hang-up - the Confederate battle flag still flying above the state capitol. Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. ordered the flag be taken down, arguably costing himself reelection. But Alabama landed an historic deal.

If Apple gets into the car business as a lot of analysts are predicting, the company will again show that it's not afraid to reinvent itself.

But if we want to woo their factories here, we will have to reinvent Alabama.