Roy Moore Says America Was Great When Slavery Existed

America was great during the era of slavery, according to Roy Moore.

No, that's not a headline from The Onion or another parody site. The far-right, anti-LGBT Republican candidate for U.S. senator from Alabama really said it, in a campaign rally in Florence, Ala., in September, shortly before his primary runoff election against interim Sen. Luther Strange. The statement, largely overlooked by media at the time, is getting more attention today after a journalist tweeted about it.

At the rally, held at a Christian high school, one of the few African-Americans in the audience asked Moore when America was great, a reference to Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan, which Moore has embraced as well.

"I think it was great at the time when families were united -- even though we had slavery -- they cared for one another. ... Our families were strong, our country had a direction," Moore replied, according to the Los Angeles Times. At the same rally, Moore referred to Native Americans and Asian-Americans as "reds and yellows," and denounced "the awful calamity of abortion, sodomy, the perverse sexual behavior" in America.

Eric Columbus, a Politico contributor who worked in the Obama administration, tweeted the slavery quote Thursday.

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Numerous other outraged tweets have followed.

There's no record so far of Moore commenting directly on the matter, although his Twitter and Facebook feeds are full of accusations that his opponents are lying about him. He is also making much of an admission by Beverly Young Nelson, who claims Moore sexually assaulted her when she was 16, that she added notes to an inscription she says he made in her high school yearbook. Moore and his supporters have challenged the authenticity of the inscription itself, but Nelson maintains it was indeed from Moore, and a handwriting expert says it is as well.

The Senate special election between Moore and Democrat Doug Jones will be next Tuesday. Trump is scheduled to campaign for Moore tonight in Pensacola, Fla., just across the state line from Alabama.