AL Senate Front-Runner: Child Abuse, Murder Up ‘Because We Have Forgotten God’

The man most likely to be Alabama’s next senator told his supporters late last week that rape, murder and child abuse are on the rise — and are so because of Americans’ lack of faith.

“We put ourselves above God, and in doing so we forgot the basic source of our morality,” he said at a Saturday church event in Decatur, Ala. “People are getting killed in the streets. Washington, D.C.? People are getting killed in the streets. Chicago has the highest murder rate you can imagine. All across our land we have child abuse, we have sodomy, we have murder, we have rape, we have all kind of immoral things happening because we have forgotten God.”

Moore later read one of his poems — about how America is falling apart.

Some choice lines:

“Babies piled in dumpsters, abortion on demand,
Oh, sweet land of liberty, your house is on the sand.”

“We’ve voted in governments that are rotting to the core,
Appointing Godless judges who throw reason out the door.
Too soft to put a killer in a well deserved tomb,
But brave enough to kill that child before he leaves the womb.

You think that God’s not angry, that our land’s a moral slum?
How much longer will it be before His judgment comes?”

The comments are in line with Moore’s normal stump speech, and show how heavy the religious conservative focuses on Christian morality in his message. That’s a feature, not a bug, of his candidacy in the heavily conservative, deeply religious state.

Violent crime has actually dropped dramatically over the last few decades, though it did tick up in the past few years.

He went on to defend his knowledge of other issues — including the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program President Trump recently nixed, and he had no idea about until recently.

“I know about health care. I know these issues. I know about the military. I know about DACA. RAISE, the new immigration statute they’re trying — they’re passing, or is before Congress. I know about all these issues. But who talks about morality? And morality is the basic source of right and wrong,” he said.

Moore has led in every single poll of his primary runoff against appointed Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) in spite of Strange getting the heavy backing of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and an endorsement from Trump, who will be in the state Friday for him. Most GOP strategists closely watching the race say it has tightened, but that Moore still has the edge heading into next Tuesday’s primary.

Moore’s campaign posted the speech to his Facebook page. It did not respond to requests seeking clarification on his comments. His remarks can be viewed below, starting at about 34 minutes in.