Outside of a Roy Moore campaign event in Birmingham, Alabama, local peanut farmer Nathan Mathis held up an image of his daughter and gave an impassioned plea to his fellow Alabamians.
"Judge Roy More called her a pervert for one reason: because she was gay. If he called her a pervert, he'd call your child a pervert."
\u201cNathan Mathis is here outside the Moore event. He tells me his daughter committed suicide and says Roy Moore called her a pervert because she was gay. \u201cMy sign says it all,\u201d he said.\u201d— Andrew Desiderio (@Andrew Desiderio) 1513034336
The sign shows a girl in a basketball uniform, 23-year-old Patti Sue Mathis, who committed suicide after coming out as gay at the age of 23. Her father felt the need to speak out against this toxic homophobia that made her life difficult and is taking a stand against Senate candidate Roy Moore.
In a clip that recently went viral on Twitter, Mathis is clearly very emotional talking about his daughter on camera, his voice nervous and shaky. "I was anti-gay myself. I said bad things to my daughter myself which I regret. I can't take back what happened to my daughter, but stuff like saying my daughter's a pervert, I'm sure that bothered her."
"I had mixed emotions about coming. Somebody needs to speak up."
"How is my daughter a pervert just because she was gay?" he asked. "This is something people need to stop and think about. You're supposed to uphold the constitution. Constitution said all men are created equal."
Moore, who's been accused of sexually assaulting nine women (including a 14-year-old), is running as a Republican for a seat in the US Senate. The former judge recently received an endorsement from Donald Trump. "LAST thing the Make America Great Again Agenda needs is a Liberal Democrat in Senate where we have so little margin for victory already," tweeted Trump. "VOTE ROY MOORE!"
"If she was a pervert, what about him going with them young girls?" asked Mathis. "Him, a 32-year-old going out with a 14- to 17-year-old girls. What does that make him? A sorry pervert."
Mathis begs Alabamians to vote for anyone else but Roy Moore, "I cannot believe that anybody in Alabama would do away with their moral beliefs to vote for someone just because they’re going to think they’re gonna vote a certain way in Congress. I cannot believe that." He added, "This vote tomorrow you’re gonna make, I’m not saying who to vote for, I’m just saying, don’t vote for Roy Moore. He ain’t fit to be in office."
"He didn't call my daughter by name, he said all gay people are perverts, abominations. That's not true. We don't need a person like that representing us in Washington."
\u201cA father who\u2019s a local peanut farmer in Alabama, standing outside a Roy Moore rally, talks about losing his gay daughter at age of 23 to suicide. Says people shouldn\u2019t vote for Moore who calls gay people perverts & an abomination.\n\n#VoteDoug #VoteDougJones\u201d— Scott Dworkin (@Scott Dworkin) 1513038294
