Following his suspension from the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore announced today that he will run in the special election for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Former Governor Roy Bentley appointed then-state attorney general Luther Strange to fill the seat, but a special election will be held later this year to determine who will serve the remainder of Sessions’ term.
Moore was suspended as chief justice of the state supreme court after he unsuccessfully attempted to have state judges defy the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling, which he said was illegitimate because it violated “God’s law.” This is the second time he was suspended from the court, as he previously lost his job after flouting a federal court ruling ordering the removal of a Ten Commandments monument he installed in the courthouse rotunda.
In his announcement today, Moore warned that “the foundations of the fabric of our country are being shaken tremendously: Our families are being crippled by divorce and abortion, our sacred institution of marriage has been destroyed by the Supreme Court, and our rights and liberties are in jeopardy.”
Moore has a long record of championing Religious Right causes, as seen in his fights over marriage equality and church-state separation.
While cheering Kentucky clerk Kim Davis’ own attempt to spurn the marriage equality decision, Moore likened her ordeal to the Holocaust. He has claimed that Satan is behind same-sex marriage and abortion rights and that God is punishing America for their legalization.
Moore also linked same-sex marriage to child abuse, incest and polygamy and said that the “attempt to destroy the institution of marriage” will “literally cause the destruction of our country,” going so far as to warn that it may lead to war, the confiscation of children, and a civil disobedience movement like the one launched by Martin Luther King, Jr. against segregation. “I hope I don’t give my life, but I’m going to tell you this is a very serious matter,” he said.
It is no surprise that Moore has called homosexuality a “criminal lifestyle.”
He described homosexuality as “a crime against nature,” “inherently detrimental to children” and a “lifestyle [that] should never be tolerated.”
“[E]xposing a child to such behavior has a destructive and seriously detrimental effect on the children,” he has said, insisting that the “common law designates homosexuality as an inherent evil, and if a person openly engages in such a practice, that fact alone would render him or her an unfit parent.”
Moore’s war against same-sex marriage was bankrolled and supported by Michael Peroutka, a neo-Confederate activist and a local official in Maryland, who Moore worked with to stand up against federal “tyranny.”
In one last-ditch attempt, Moore tried to organize a constitutional convention to ban same-sex marriage.
Unsurprisingly, he believes that Christianity should have privileges over other religious faiths because “they didn’t bring a Quran over on the Pilgrim ship, the Mayflower,” and “Buddha didn’t create us, Mohammad didn’t create us.” Secular government, he claims, has made Christians lose their rights and contributed to the ascendance of Sharia law. He also demanded that Congress refuse to allow Rep. Keith Ellison to take his House seat because he “wants to swear on the Koran” in a ceremonial photo.
He has also railed against the theory of evolution, saying that it “distorted our way of thinking” and that parents should take their children out of schools that teach that humans “evolved from monkeys,” which is not what evolution teaches.
Moore will face several other candidates, including Strange, in the race for the Republican nomination.
