After all but beating the most anti-LGBT Senate candidate in recent history, Alabama’s Doug Jones’ son has come out as gay.
Vehemently anti-LGBT Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore has refused to concede, despite being behind by a margin of more than 20,000 votes.
But that hasn’t stopped Democrat Doug Jones and his son Carson celebrating victory.
Speaking to Grindr’s magazine INTO, Carson has opened up about being gay and the support he has given to his father, and support received in return.
Carson tells the magazine that he came out during his senior year in high school and has never looked back.
The Zookeeper says: “[Mountain Brook] was not a place that I would have felt comfortable coming out in.
“I only know of one person who was out in my year.”
“Beliefs can change,” Carson adds of Alabama’s history.
“He shows you the strides we can make. It may not happen as fast as we would like, but we’ll get there.”
Failed Senate candidate Roy Moore released a video saying he was very upset with gay people after his election defeat.
The Republican candidate for Alabama’s US Senate seat, who has said that “homosexual conduct” should be illegal, lost to Democrat Doug Jones this week in a surprise upset – by a margin of 20,000 votes.
Moore, an anti-LGBT extremist, was rocked by scandal during the campaign after he was accused of sexual misconduct and child molestation by nine women. Several of the women were underage at the time, one just 14.
But the candidate, who has refused to concede the race, was defiant in a bizarre video posted to YouTube after the vote.
The wide-ranging video repeatedly touches on Moore’s anti-gay beliefs.
He said: “That American Dream has today been tainted by corrupt politics and a government which is become out of control and out of touch with the people. Many do not share the vision of those who built this country.
“Today, we no longer recognize the universal truth that God is the author of our life and liberty. Abortion, sodomy, and materialism have taken the place of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
He continued to lash out at the “murder of unborn children and re-definition of marriage”.
Moore continues: “We’ve even begun to recognize the right of a man to claim to be a woman and visa versa. We’ve allowed judges and justices to overrule our constitution and we’ve become slaves to their tyranny. Immorality sweeps over our land.
“Even our political process has been affected with baseless and false allegations which have become more relevant than the true issues.
“This election was painted by over $50 million from outside groups who want to retain power in their own corrupt ideology.
“No longer is this about Republican or Democrat control… it’s about a Washington establishment that will not listen.”
Check out the video from Moore below:
The result leaves the Senate with 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats, a potentially significant shift which leaves moderate or dissenting Republicans like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Bob Corker with more power.
Before the sexual assault allegations – for which Moore blamed LGBT people – began streaming in a month ago, the disgraced former judge had already made a series of virulently homophobic comments.
Moore said he “doesn’t know” if gay people should be executed.
He also compared gay sex to bestiality and said that decriminalizing homosexuality was “terrible” and “devastating”.
At the same event, Moore said that the legalization of same-sex marriage would lead to laws allowing “one man to marry ten women or a man to marry his two daughters.”
The 70-year-old compared those who follow same-sex marriage laws to Nazis.
Despite these horrifically homophobic comments, Republicans flooded to support Moore – including President Donald Trump.
Trump, who continued to campaign enthusiastically for Moore up to last night, now faces having backed two losing candidates in the same special election, after backing Luther Stranger in the Republican primary.
After a period of hedging following the claims of sexual misconduct, the President threw his support behind Moore.
Most of the women who Moore allegedly sexually assaulted were teenagers at the time.
Leigh Corfman was 14 when Moore, a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, allegedly stripped the child and touched her over her bra and underpants.
Enticing a child under 16 to enter a home with the purpose of proposing sexual intercourse or fondling of sexual and genital parts is – and was – a felony which means up to 10 years in prison.
He was allegedly banned from his local mall in Alabama because of his behavior towards teenage girls there.
Moore resisted calls from more than a dozen Republican senators – including Majority Leader of the Senate Mitch McConnell – to step aside.
Reacting to the result last night, Moore told his supporters: “You know, part of the thing — part of the problem with this campaign is we’ve been painted in an unfavourable and unfaithful light.
“We’ve been put in a hole, if you will.”
Jones, who became the first Democratic Alabama Senator in two decades, started his victory speech by saying: “I think that I have been waiting all my life and now I just don’t know what the hell to say.”
He added: “This entire race has been about dignity and respect.
“This campaign has been about the rule of law.
“This campaign has been about common courtesy and decency and making sure everyone in this state, regardless of what zip code you live in, is going to get a fair shake.”
Jones continued: “I have always believed that the people of Alabama have more in common than divides us.
“We have shown the country the way that we can be.”
At the bottom of his victory tweet, he included the hashtag “#RightSideOfHistory”.
And that just about sums it up.