Underage sex scandal

JUST weeks out from special US Senate elections, the Republican candidate for the evangelical state of Alabama is facing allegations of sexual contact with three young women — one of them just 14.

But some of his supporters don’t see any problem with that — even if it’s true.

The Washington Post has revealed that an Alabama woman said Republican Roy Moore, then a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, had sexual contact with her when she was 14.

Three other women inter- viewed by the Post said Mr Moore, now 70, approached them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s.

The Moore campaign is fighting back, declaring the report to be “the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation”.

Mr Moore himself has since issued a fundraising appeal asking for emergency donations in a “spiritual battle”.

Many leading Republican figures are racing to distance themselves from their candidate, saying he must get out of the race immediately if the claims are true. But others are standing their ground in supporting him — and citing the Bible as cause to do so.

Mr Moore is telling potential donors in a new fundraising pitch that “the forces of evil are on the march in our country”.

But he’s not referring to himself. In the fundraising plea, he says “the Obama-Clinton Machine’s liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me I’ve EVER faced”.

“You and I have a duty to stand up and fight back against the forces of evil waging an allout war on our conservative values,” he wrote. “I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight!”

The Washington Examiner reports Alabama state Auditor Jim Zeigler has taken to the soapbox to dismiss everything about the allegations — including that they’re an offence in the first place. “There is nothing to see here,” Mr Zeigler told the Examiner.

“The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls. Even the Washington Post report says that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the girls and never attempted sexual intercourse.”

But the allegations against Moore are explicit.