Art by Jesse Mechanic

Much of the recent coverage surrounding Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore has involved the numerous sexual abuse allegations waged against the twice-removed judge—and for good reason. There are currently nine allegations and nearly all of them involve underage women, one as young as 14. Moore was banned from a local shopping mall for preying on young women; his behavior was well-known in the region. All of these allegations are serious and they should immediately disqualify Moore from holding a Senate seat, but the reality is he should've never even been near the seat in the first place.

Roy Moore has been an unapologetic bigot for decades. He's a man known for his dangerously literal interpretation of the Bible, which he uses as a guide to discriminate and demonize large groups of people. The following is just a small sampling of statements made by Moore that should've buried his political aspirations years ago. Some of these are so undeniably insane that they are hard to believe, but I assure you, they are all real. Click the hyperlinks.

He Said Muslims Should Not Be Allowed To Serve in Congress

In December, 2006, a month after Keith Ellison became the first Muslim elected to the United States congress, Roy Moore penned an op-ed entitled "Muslim Ellison Should Not Sit in Congress". The piece isn't about Ellison as a person really at all, Moore's position is that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress, period. The vile piece includes such exclamatory gems as: "Can a true believer in the Islamic doctrine found in the Quran swear allegiance to our Constitution? Those who profess a sincere belief in Allah say 'no!'" Though we have a separation of Church and state, Moore mentions God eight times in the short essay on congressional requirements.

He Compared the Koran to Hilter's Mein Kampf

In the op-ed we just mentioned, Moore closes things out with quite the declaration. He compares the Koran, the central religious text of Islam, to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf: "In 1943, we would never have allowed a member of Congress to take their oath on 'Mein Kampf,' or someone in the 1950s to swear allegiance to the 'Communist Manifesto.'"

He Said America Was "Great" During Slavery

As the LA Times reported back in September, during a rally Moore was asked by an African American man in the audience when he thought America was last "great." Moore responded by saying, “I think it was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery — they cared for one another…. Our families were strong, our country had a direction.”

EVEN. THOUGH. WE. HAD. SLAVERY.

He Said Homosexuality Should Be Illegal

Roy Moore isn't just against gay marriage, he thinks gay people should be thrown in jail. As many reported, Moore, during an interview on C-Span in 2005, was asked to clarify his views on homosexuality. When asked outright if he thought being gay should be illegal he said, "Homosexual conduct should be illegal, yes."

He Suggested 9/11 May Have Been Punishment For Homosexuality

When speaking at a Baptist church in Alabama, Moore said, "If you think that's coincidence, if you go to verse 25, 'there should be up on every high mountain and upon every hill rivers and streams of water in the day of the great slaughter when the towers will fall.' You know, we've suffered a lot in this country, maybe, just maybe, because we've distanced ourselves from the one that has it within his hands to heal this land." Later in the speech he clarifies that God was likely angry with the United States because we "legalize sodomy" his very lightly coded language for homosexuality.

He Said Putin May Be "Right" About Gay Marriage

Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man who said it was "his duty" to stop gay marriage may have found his homophobic American counterpart in Roy Moore. When questioned by the Guardian about the similarities between how Moore and Putin talk about gay rights and morality Moore said “Well, maybe Putin is right [...]Maybe he’s more akin to me than I know.”

He Said Evolution Being Taught In Schools Leads To Drive-By Shootings

During a speech in 1997, Roy Moore said "Scientists who study evolution come up with some of the oddest things, don’t they? They tell us we evolved from something that crawled out of the water, but they have no evidence for that." This statement is categorically false, but he didn't stop there. When musing about violence in the area Moore said, “That’s the kind of logic they’ve used in our society today when we have kids driving by shooting each other that they don’t even know each other. They're acting like animals because we've taught them they come from animals."

He Said The Point Of The Constitution Was To "Foster Christianity"

When speaking to Vox's Jeff Stein in September, Moore said, “You have to understand it was the duty of the government under the First Amendment, according to Joseph Story who was there for 37 years and wrote the stories on the Constitution. It was the duty to foster religion and foster Christianity. He said at the time of the adoption of the Constitution that “it was the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America that Christianity ought to be favored by the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience.”

He Aims To Govern By "God's Laws"

It should be no surprise coming from a man who was twice removed as judge from the Alabama Supreme Court, once for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments plaque and once for disobeying Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage, but Roy Moore is not too keen on the separation of Church and state. When appearing on the radio show of a pastor who once said the Bible calls for the "death penalty for homosexuals," Moore said “God’s laws are always superior to man’s laws.” He also once said that the "separation of church and state was never meant to separate God and government," which is false.

He Said Communities In The Midwest Were Living Under Sharia Law

To round out his Islamophobic views, Roy Moore, again from the Vox interview, told Jeff Stein that "There are communities under Sharia law right now in our country. Up in Illinois. Christian communities; I don’t know if they may be Muslim communities." This followed with a back and forth that ended with Stein saying, "That seems like an amazing claim for a Senate candidate to make." To which Moore responded: "Well, let me just put it this way — if they are, they are; if they’re not, they’re not."

So, in summation, this man who is widely known to prey on young women also: does not believe Muslims should be allowed to serve in Congress, thinks the Koran is equivalent to Mein Kampf, thinks homosexuality should be illegal and that it may have caused 9/11, doesn't believe in evolution and thinks that it being taught in schools causes drive-by shootings, does not respect the separation of Church and state and thinks America was "great" during slavery.

This man very well may be the next Senator from Alabama.

Previously published on The Overgrown.