(CNN) Almost every religion asks a version of the question, "What would Jesus do?" Buddhists look to the Buddha, Muslims to the Prophet Mohammed, Sikhs to Guru Nanak, observant Jews to Moses, and the list goes on.

Emulating holy men and women from the distant past is hard -- what would the Buddha do with Facebook? -- but the effort has helped faiths keep their founders' missions alive, even as they amble across centuries and continents. Still, there is a shadow side to this devotion: the use, or misuse, of sacred stories to condone bad behavior.

The latest and perhaps oddest example came this week, when an Alabama official i nvoked Christianity's Holy Family to defend Senate GOP candidate Roy Moore from accusations that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl decades ago.

"Take Joseph and Mary," Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler told the Washington Examiner. "Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus. There's just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual."

In some ways, it makes sense for Moore's allies to draw on religious examples when defending him. The longtime Alabama Supreme Court judge has made Christianity and the Bible central to his political identity. He has insisted on displaying a monument to the Ten Commandments in the courthouse, even after he was told to remove it, and earned a suspension for refusing to follow the Supreme Court's legalization of gay marriage.

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