Roy Moore
Roy Moore is the Republican nominee to fill Jeff Session’s vacated Senate seat in Alabama.
Born in Gadsden, Alabama, Moore had a poor but devout upbringing. Moore attended the Military Academy at West Point and graduated in 1969. He then served in the Vietnam War where he earned a reputation for being a strict disciplinarian. He was discharged from the Army in 1974 and returned to Alabama to attend the University of Alabama Law School.
Moore then began working for the Etowah County District Attorney’s office as a prosecutor. After suffering a political loss when he attempted to secure a circuit-court judge seat, he moved to Texas for several years. He returned to Gadsden in 1985 and ran for district attorney as a democrat. After losing that race as well, he switched to the Republican Party and entered private practice.
In 1992 after the death of a Circuit Judge, Moore was appointed to take his place on the bench. He then ran in 1994 as a republican to hold the circuit judge seat and won, serving in that position for 5 years. In 1999, he decided to run for Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. He was sworn in in 2001, but his position was short-lived. In 2003 after several lawsuits and religious controversy, he was removed from office.
In 2011, he decided to run again to fill the Chief Justice seat he had once obtained. To general surprise, he won the election after raising over one million dollars (compared to his republican components $225,000). After issuing an order to lower court judges to ignore legalizing gay marriage, Moore was suspended from office facing six charges of ethics violations. He was ultimately found guilty of all six charges and suspended for the remainder of his term. He then resigned in April, 2017 and announced he would be running for a Senate seat.
In the Know
Hang in there, because there’s a lot you need to know about Moore and the threat he poses. Most of Moore’s controversial opinions stem from the fact that the places God over the United States constitution. As a private citizen, that is his right, but as a public officer, he should maintain a separation of church and state and has to respect the laws upheld in this country. When running against Luther Strange only last week, Moore said, “I want to see virtue and morality returned to our country and God is the only source of our law, liberty, and government.”
In 2003, the first time he was suspended from the Alabama Supreme Court, it was because he had a statue of the Ten Commandments placed in the lobby of the state judicial building. He also had a tablet of the Ten Commandments hung behind his bench where he presided over cases. The ACLU of Alabama as well as the Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit against the Court Moore represented and demanded the monument be removed. A federal judge then instructed Moore to have the monument removed, which he refused to do, which ultimately led to his suspension.
Moore also instructed Alabama’s probate judges to defy federal court orders recognizing same-sex marriage. Moore believes that same-sex relationships and homosexuality is a sin and that, because God is the highest law in the land, this gives him the right to ignore legislation that recognizes same-sex marriage. After he was suspended from the bench again, found guilty of all charges, Moore released the following statement: “This was a politically motivated effort by radical homosexual and transgender groups to remove me as chief justice of the Supreme Court because of outspoken opposition to their immoral agenda.”
In 2006, Keith Ellison was the first Muslim elected to Congress and he requested he be sworn in on the Quran rather than the Bible. Moore then wrote an op-ed for World Net Daily saying that Ellison should be barred from serving in the House because he was Muslim, arguing that “common sense alone dictates that in the midst of a war with Islamic terrorists we should not place someone in a position of great power who shares their doctrine.”
Moore also is among the “birther” lunatics who believe that Obama was not born in the U.S.
2017 Headlines
Moore recently made headlines for a Vox interview in which he said that certain communities within the U.S. were operating under Sharia law.
At a rally last week, Moore, decked out in a leather vest and cowboy hat, pulled a handgun from his pocket and said, “I believe in the 2nd Amendment.”
Moore was the candidate backed by Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage – talk about the three amigos. Though Trump and Pence backed Moore’s opponent, Luther Strange (which sounds like a Marvel villain), after Moore’s win, Trump tweeted his congratulations.
Fun Fact
Nothing about this man is fun, but when he took a hiatus from being suspended from his profession, he did train in Texas for a year to be a kickboxer and worked on an Australian cattle ranch for some time.