Father, who says he's a local peanut farmer in Wicksburg, outside Roy Moore rally talks about losing his gay daughter at age of 23 to suicide. "I was anti-gay myself. I said bad things to my daughter, which I regret." pic.twitter.com/J0oOU0EJI2
— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) December 11, 2017
An Alabama protester outside a rally for Republican Roy Moore is slamming the Senate candidate over his rhetoric targeting homosexuals, holding a sign saying that Moore’s own alleged encounters with teenage girls made him “a pervert of the worst kind.”
William Nathan Mathis, a 74-year-old peanut farmer, told reporters Monday that his daughter, who was gay, committed suicide in 1995. He said he was at Moore’s rally to speak out against his anti-gay rhetoric.
“Judge Roy Moore called my daughter Patti Sue Mathis a pervert because she was gay,” Mathis’s sign read. “A 32 year old Roy Moore dated teenage girls ages 14 to 17. So that makes him a pervert of the worst kind. Please don’t vote for Roy Moore!”
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According to The New York Times, Mathis acknowledged that he had been “anti-gay” and that he regretted certain “bad things” he said to his daughter, who was 23 when she died.
But he said that he felt that he had a responsibility to stand up in opposition to Moore, who has said that homosexual conduct should be illegal and has described it as “an inherent evil.”
“How is my daughter a pervert just because she is gay?” he asked reporters. “I don’t know what I will accomplish. I really don’t. I had mixed emotions about coming. But somebody needs to speak up, and if it is all to no avail, so be it.”
Moore, a fierce conservative, is facing off against Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama’s special Senate election on Tuesday. The race tightened in recent weeks after multiple women came forward with allegations that Moore pursued sexual and romantic relations with them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.
He has denied the allegations and has suggested the women came forward as a political plot to undermine his campaign.
In addition to saying that homosexuality should be illegal, Moore has also stated on the record that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress.