Among the Elephant Elders of the GOP, it's all style points.

Utah Senator Orrin Hatch says, "I have trouble with those," about Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore's views on gay rights.

That's like Senator Jeff Flake saying he is quitting the Senate because the *resident is a vulgarian.

Jeff Flake votes with MOTUS 90% of the time; Hatch, 96%.

The daylight between Hatch and Moore is about like being two miles off the zone of totality for an eclipse.

As The Advocate reported in May,

Should the presidential line of succession lead to third-in-line Orrin Hatch, the second-highest ranking senator, it will equate to an 83-year-old president, making Trump and Hillary Clinton (both dinged for their age) look like adolescents by comparison. Even though the Utah senator was born during the Great Depression, he's more progressive on LGBT rights than Pence, and seemingly more than Ryan. 

The former Mormon missionary compared gay people to Nazis back in 1977 — the year he joined the Senate — and said they shouldn't teach. The senator has become more moderate since. No, he doesn't believe in same-sex marriage, but supports civil unions and even voted for 2013's failed Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would have banned anti-LGBT bias in America's workplaces. Disappointingly, Hatch also pushed for President Obama's 2014 executive order banning LGBT discrimination among federal contractors to include religious exemptions. The truth is, Hatch has voted against almost all LGBT-inclusive bills and has a 16 on HRC's Congressional Scorecard.