Alabama Senate Candidate Roy Moore Uses Racist Terms In Campaign Speech

Roy Moore, the frontrunner in Alabama's GOP Senate runoff, allegedly used racially insensitive language to refer to Native Americans and Asians during a campaign speech Sunday, reports said.

In the speech recorded on camera, the former chief justice of the state's highest court referred to “reds and yellows” — racial slurs that likely referred to Native Americans and Asian Americans — and said: "We were torn apart in the Civil War - brother against brother, north against south, party against party. What changed."

According to the footage obtained by the Hill, he added: "Now we have blacks and whites fighting, reds and yellows fighting, Democrats and Republicans fighting, men and women fighting. What’s going to unite us? What’s going to bring us back together? A president? A congress? No. It’s going to be God."

However, Moore's campaign told the Hill that his remarks were taken and placed out of context.

"'Red, yellow, black and white they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world,'" the campaign said in a statement, in an apparent reference to the religious song "Jesus Loves the Little Children."

"This is the gospel. If we take it seriously, America can once again be united as one nation under God."

Moore, no stranger to controversies, completed his graduation from Etowah High School in Attalla, Alabama, in 1965 and from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1969, where he also received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Arts and Engineering.

Moore served in Vietnam as a company commander with the Military Police Corps. After serving in the Army, Judge Moore completed his Juris Doctor degree from The University of Alabama School of Law in 1977.

Following this, Moore became the first full-time Deputy District Attorney in Etowah County, Alabama, from 1977 to 1982; in 1984 he undertook private practice of law in Gadsden, Alabama.

In 1992, he became a judge of the Sixteenth Judicial Circuit of Alabama and served this position until his election as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2000.

Moore was removed from office in 2003 after he insisted on displaying the Ten Commandments in his courtroom.

Moore was re-elected by a vote of the people as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in November 2012 and took office in January 2013, according to Moore's official website.

In 2016, he was again removed from office because he refused to enforce the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on same-sex marriage rights.

Moore's comment on Sunday was not the first time he has said something controversial.

Last week, CNN reported that Moore implied during a speech to a church congregation in February that the 9/11 terror attacks could have been caused because the United States lacked faith in religion and had separated itself from God.

Next week's special Senate election will decide which Republican and Democratic candidates face off in December’s general election. Whoever wins the general election will fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.