Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, a conservative judge whose fight to preserve a Ten Commandments statue in the state courthouse garnered national headlines, is campaigning to get his old job back with some decidedly anti-LGBT, pro-Christianity rhetoric.
Speaking to about a hundred members of the DeKalb County Tea Party on Saturday, Moore told the crowd that gay marriage would be "the ultimate destruction of our country," Queerty reports.
Warning that "we will suffer the consequences," Moore emphasized the destructive nature of the Democratic party's same-sex marriage platform.
"We cannot continue to borrow the future of our children and our grandchildren or we will suffer the consequences," he said in a video featured on Queerty. "We can't keep going into debt. We can't keep disparaging our military and promoting things like same-sex marriage, L-G-B-T. To hear the President of the United States say that we are promoting L-G-B-T, let's think about what that is: lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered rights."
Moore's 20-minute speech also hit on the need to return to the values championed by God and the Founding Fathers.
Moore's fervent Christianity, the reason for his dismissal in 2003, is well documented. Alabama's judicial ethics panel fired Moore after he refused to remove a 2.6-ton granite carving of the Ten Commandments that stood in the state judicial building's rotunda. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson had ruled the granite carving was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion and had to be taken down.
At the time, Moore's battle to keep the statue became a rallying point for Christians who felt their religion was under attack, according to CNN. "God has chosen this time and this place so we can save our country and save our courts for our children," Moore said during the struggle.
After winning his March primary, Moore now faces off against Democrat Jefferson County Circuit Judge Robert Vance Jr. in the Nov. 6 general election.
It's a somewhat improbable political comeback for the Tea Party favorite, who twice ran unsuccessfully for Alabama governor. However, Moore has racked up several evangelical endorsements including Joyce Meyer, Alabama Senator Richard Shelby and former teen heartthrob Kirk Cameron, according to the Christian Post.
Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, the state's first openly gay legislator, said Moore's comments on gay marriage were "heartbreaking," the Birmingham News reports.
"We're going to bring the downfall of the country? When you have war and the economy? When you look at states that have same sex marriage, they're all doing pretty good," Todd said.
Moore's opponent, Judge Vance, accused the former Chief Justice of not "focusing on the issues that are actually affecting Alabama" The News wrote, pointing out that Alabama already has a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage.
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