A Republican congressional candidate from Alabama with a history of combating homosexuality said on the campaign trail in 2002 that gays should return to California or Vermont or “wherever they came from.”

Mother Jones on Monday surfaced a Associated Press interview from 2002 with real estate developer Dean Young, who is vying for the Republican nomination in a runoff election Tuesday for Alabama’s first congressional district, in which the candidate suggested gays must have moved to Alabama from other areas since they’re not native to the state.

He said if gays “don’t like the laws of Alabama…then maybe they need to go back to California or Vermont or wherever they came from,” as quoted by Mother Jones. Young was campaigning for Alabama secretary of state at the time.

As Mother Jones points out, Young came up as a social-conservative advocate when he served as spokesman for Roy Moore, the Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who was once relieved of his post after refusing to remove a sculpture of the Ten Commandments from his courthouse.

In a Q&A with the Guardian last week, Young struggled to remember the name of the United States Treasury secretary and House Republican whip. Jack Lew currently fills the Treasury post and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) holds the No. 2 spot in the House GOP, but Young wondered whether former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) held those respective positions.

[h/t Huffington Post]