WaPo reporter says that women spoke out about Roy Moore in part because of his hypocritical stance on LGBTQ rights

Beth Reinhard: “They also feel that it's hypocritical of him to be saying things like homosexuality should be illegal when in their experience, he was​ looking for teenagers to date at the mall​ w​hen he was in his ​30s”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the November 9 edition of CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper:

BETH REINHARD: We didn't have any contact with the Democratic Party while we were reporting the story, and this story did not fall into our laps or our inbox. A Washington Post reporter was in Alabama doing some reporting on Roy Moore's supporters when these rumors were emerging that he had had relationships with teenage girls. Two of us spent weeks in Alabama pursuing these leads that we got, and as we say in the story, none of the women were eager to go public. They were all off the record when we first spoke to them, and it took multiple interviews before they agreed to speak publicly because in the end they felt like they needed to do it. But they did not seek out this attention.

JAKE TAPPER (HOST): So why did they say they are telling their stories now? You got them, all four of them, to go on the record. Why come forward now?

REINHARD: I think there are a couple reasons. I mean one, they see he's running for such a high office, U.S. Senate. They also feel that it's hypocritical of him to be saying things like homosexuality should be illegal when in their experience, he was looking for teenagers to date at the mall when he was in his 30s. So they say they saw a side of Roy Moore that the voters don't know. The side that Roy Moore has presented to them is of the Ten Commandments judge. He got in trouble for installing a monument of the Ten Commandments in the judicial building when he was on the [Alabama] Supreme Court. His very strict views on outlawing homosexuality. He recently talked about how transgenders shouldn't serve in military. So it was sort of an accumulation of all that as to why they felt like they needed to speak up.

Related:

The Washington Post: Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32

Previously:

CNN has done great reporting on Roy Moore’s extremism, but two network contributors are trying to get him elected

GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore suggested 9/11 was punishment for “legitimized sodomy,” but top media outlets just call him a “firebrand”

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