Georgia Republican congressional candidate Jody Hice argued on Tuesday that the sexual abuses at Penn State University were a result of de-emphasizing the Bible in educational settings, in audio posted by Right Wing Watch.

“People need to understand that the Judeo-Christian worldview that this country was founded upon places within the hearts of individuals and the culture at large the capacity to self govern their lives on the basis of right and wrong,” Hice told Christian radio host Rick Wiles. “When that is removed, you get exactly what we are witnessing at Penn State: the absence of the ability to govern one’s life based upon right and wrong, and you have things like pedophilia taking place and other people seeing it, witnessing, turning their back because there’s no core values of right and wrong.”

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Hice did not mention that assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted two years ago for abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period, was a longtime member of a local congregation, St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, at the time of he was imprisoned.

He also told Wiles that he felt the country had become “morally bankrupt.”

“You can go back decades, as we first kicked the Bible out of schools and prayer out of schools,” Hice said. “We’ve just basically been going downhill since then and you get what you get.”

Hice has argued in the past that Muslims are not protected by the First Amendment. Right Wing Watch also reported that he has blamed the separation of church and state for the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut.

Listen to Hice’s comments, as posted by Right Wing Watch, below.