Roy Moore calls child abuse allegations ‘false attacks’ and urges focus on trans rights
(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Embattled former judge Roy Moore has said that allegations of child abuse are “false attacks” and that people should focus on the “true issues” like stopping trans rights.
In a rare appearance at a rally in the Alabama town of Henagar, Moore made the comments.
“The people of this country want movement. They don’t want false attacks like this. That’s exactly what’s happening in this case,” Moore said.
He added: “They want to hide the true issues of immigration and health care, military readiness, taxes, abortion, and transgender rights.
“They also not only want to hide the issues, they don’t want my opponent’s issues revealed; how he stands on these issues. I’ll tell you how he stands: completely contrary to the people of this state and this country.”
Moore faces allegations of child sex abuse, and last week rallied against “homosexualist gay terrorism” in a bid to become a US Senator.
The former judge is the frontrunner in the race for the US Senate seat vacated by Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
He has been enthusiastically backed in the race by Donald Trump, despite being the most homophobic candidate for the US Senate in recent history.
And Moore has since been accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl.
Appearing at a rally on Thursday, Moore doubled down on his adamant homophobic views.
He appeared alongside a Rabbi who complained about the “LGBT mafia” and the “homosexualist gay terrorism.”
Rabbi Noson Leiter spoke in Moore’s support and against LGBT people.
“We all, especially those of us in Orthodox Jewish communities nationwide, need Judge Moore in the Senate now more than ever,” said the Rabbi.
“We need someone with a proven record of facing off against the gay terrorists who never, ever let an opportunity to lie to go to waste.”
He accused other politicians of “fail[ing] to combat the agendas of sodomy and transgender insanity….. They have failed to push even one simple bill to protect bakers, photographers, etc. from homosexualist gay terrorist blackmail.”
“May the Ultimate Judge speedily pour out his heavenly wrath against our enemies and mercifully save us all,” the Rabbi ended with.
A second supporter said same-sex marriage was “a mirage [because] it’s phony and fake”, and warned against “homosexual sodomy”.
A disturbing proportion of Evangelical Christians have said they will still vote for Roy Moore after he was accused of initiating a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old.
Moore, who believes that homosexuality should be illegal, has previously been accused of drawing a salary from the anti-LGBT Foundation for Moral Law, a non-profit he founded in 2002.
RELATED: Roy Moore, the most homophobic Senate candidate in recent history, is set to lose
And a month ahead of the special election, it was revealed that he allegedly sexually abused 14-year-old Leigh Corfman in 1979, when Moore, an assistant district attorney, was 32.
But despite this allegation, and since it came out, the percentage of Evangelical Christians who intend to vote for Moore has actually increased.
Moore has called the report of the allegation “fake news”. and more than a third of Evangelical Christians have said they will still vote for him.
37 percent of Evangelicals said they would vote for Moore over Democratic candidate Doug Jones.
And 29 percent overall said they will still vote for Moore, despite the allegations.
Analysing the results, JMC pollsters said: “Those who approve of President Trump support a Republican by a near-unanimous 82-11 per cent, but Moore is only favoured 76-10 per cent.
“In summary, Roy Moore has in the last month seen the race move against him.
“While the general election is still a month away, he needs to reassemble the Republican base and recognise that in the aftermath of the 7 November national elections, there is tangible evidence that Democrats are clearly more energised, and that benefits Jones.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said: “If these allegations are true, he must step aside.”
Republican Arizona Senator John McCain went further, saying: “The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying.
“He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of.”
After meeting the girl outside an Alabama courtroom, Moore allegedly talked to her and asked for her phone number.
Days later, he picked Corfman up and drove her 30 minutes to his house in the woods, she has told The Washington Post.
It was there that he told her how pretty she was and kissed her, she said.
On her second time in his home, she said, he removed her shirt and trousers and stripped off his clothes, touching her over her bra and underpants.
He also allegedly guided her hand to touch him over his underwear and gave her alcohol, she said.
“I wasn’t ready for that — I had never put my hand on a man’s penis, much less an erect one,” Corfman recalled.
She remembered thinking: “I don’t want to do this” and “I need to get out of here.”
She got dressed and asked Moore to take her home, which he did, she said.
The legal age of consent in Alabama, as it was in 1979, is 16.
Under Alabama law both then and now, a person who is at least 19 years old who has sexual contact with someone between 12 and 16 years old has committed sexual abuse in the second degree.
This is defined as touching of sexual or intimate parts, and is a crime punishable by up to one year in prison.
There is also a section in the law – which still existed back then – about enticing a child under 16 to enter a home with the purpose of proposing sexual intercourse or fondling of sexual and genital parts.
This is a felony which is punishable by as much as 10 years in prison.
Corfman explained why she decided to tell her story now, saying: “I have prayed over this.
“All I know is that I can’t sit back and let this continue, let him continue without the mask being removed.”
Three other women have told The Washington Post that Moore pursued them sexually while they aged between 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s.
They said they found his approaches flattering when they happened, but more troubling as they got older. None of them said that Moore coerced them into any relationship or sexual encounters.
Other Republican Senators have, like McConnell, said that if the allegations are proven, Moore should drop out of the race.
“It’s devastating,” said Georgia Senator David Perdue.
“I think if those allegations are true, he should step aside. I mean, I’m sorry but this is untenable — if they’re true. I have no facts, I just saw the story. But it’s very serious,” he added.
Senator Richard Shelby, from Moore’s state of Alabama, said that if the allegations were true, Moore “wouldn’t belong in the Senate.”
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said she was “horrified, and if it’s true he should step down immediately.”
Moore, now 70, has denied the accusations, saying: “These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign.”
The candidate’s campaign added: “Judge Roy Moore has endured the most outlandish attacks on any candidate in the modern political arena, but this story in today’s Washington Post alleging sexual impropriety takes the cake.
“National liberal organisations know their chosen candidate Doug Jones is in a death spiral, and this is their last-ditch Hail Mary.”
The campaign added: “This garbage is the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation.”
