Republican nominee for the Alabama Senate and alleged pedophile Roy Moore ruled in a 1990s divorce case that a woman who had a lesbian affair could not see her children without supervision, according to a CNN report.
Moore, then a circuit court judge, wrote in his ruling that the “minor children will be detrimentally affected by the present lifestyle” of their mother, adding that homosexuality is both “forbidden both by the laws of the State of Alabama and the Laws of Nature.”
Alabama’s sodomy laws were struck down in 2003 and finally ruled unconstitutional in 2014.
He was ultimately removed from the case after the woman’s attorney’s argued successfully that his views on homosexuality conflicted with his ability to judge the case fairly. As CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Chris Massie point out, the case “offers an early glimpse of how Moore’s interpretation of the Bible and morality would inform his decisions as a public official.”
Moore fought to stay on the case. According to court documents obtained by CNN, Moore argued that homosexuality “is against the law.”
“Murder is against the law,” Moore argued. “I don’t recuse for every criminal that comes up, and I’m not comparing criminality with this conduct, but if somebody that commits a murder comes up before my court, I’m not going to recuse them, because that’s against what I believe, and it’s also against the law. Homosexuality is against the law. I can’t recuse, just because homosexuality is against the law.”
The case drew attention from local activists, gay rights groups, and local media, as Moore opened the trial. Moore’s longtime political ally, Dean Young, led a rally outside the courthouse while Borden attempted to remove Moore.
“Either get your lives straight or get back in the closet where you came from,” Young was quoted by the Associated Press as saying at the courthouse rally.
In an expansive account to The Washington Post, Leigh Corfman accused Moore of initiating a sexual encounter with her when she was just 14-years-old.
According to Corfman, Moore first approached her in 1979 outside a courtroom in Alabama and struck up a conversation with her and her mother. When her mother had to go inside for court matter, Moore offered to watch Corfman. “He said, ‘Oh, you don’t want her to go in there and hear all that. I’ll stay out here with her,’” recalls Corfman’s mother, 71-year-old Nancy Wells. “I thought, how nice for him to want to take care of my little girl.”
After chatting her up and getting her phone number, Corfman says Moore picked her up from her house and drove her to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was, and kissed her.
“On a second visit, she says, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear,” the Post reported.
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