MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Republican chief justice candidate Roy Moore said America is experiencing moral decay because some leaders embrace abortion, same-sex marriage and other issues damaging to families.
"We're suffering economic and politically because we've suffered moral decay in the country," he said Tuesday.
Moore was one of the speakers at a rally on the Capitol steps organized by several ministers concerned about President Barack Obama's views on same-sex marriage and abortion.
One of the organizers, Gil Melendez, director of the Montgomery House of Prayer, said the event was not about Alabama being a red state or blue state. "We're asking for a God state," he said.
Other speakers described abortion as murder and prayed that the president will "return back to the word of God."
In an interview later, Moore's Democratic opponent, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Bob Vance, said Moore was pandering to raw emotions. "That's a long-standing Alabama tradition, unfortunately," Vance said.
Vance said he will focus his campaign on issues affecting Alabama's courts rather than issues in the presidential race.
Moore said issues of life and marriage are relevant to Alabama families. "If it wasn't relevant, it wouldn't be in the Democratic platform, which he has sworn to uphold," Moore said.
"I've never even read the Democratic platform. He's just making stuff up," Vance said.
In his speech, Moore recalled how some churches in Germany were silent as Nazis rose to power, and he warned that churches in America are too quiet on important issues involving morality and virtue.
"I believe the church has been silenced by political correctness," he said.
Moore, a former chief justice, told the crowd that he's not a preacher, a politician or even a judge right now.
"I tell you want I am. I am a Christian and I'm not ashamed of it," he said.
He said some Christians act as if God will not see what they do in politics. "I tell you that God does see it, and He will bless or curse this nation according to the course they take in politics," Moore said.
Moore and Vance face off in the general election Nov. 6, with the winner replacing Republican Chuck Malone as head of Alabama's court system. Moore held that position from 2001-2003, when he got removed from office for refusing to abide by a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the state judicial building.
Vance, the son of slain federal judge Robert Vance, is making his first bid for statewide office.
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