Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, endorsed Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore last week but Monday said he does not agree with Moore's decades-old statement Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress, The Hill reported.
"I think just because you're a member of a political party doesn't mean you agree 100 percent," Cornyn told reporters during a press conference. ". . . So I would disagree with that statement, and I dare say if you asked each one of the members up here, what they would feel about that, they would say the same thing."
Cornyn in his endorsement said Moore would be a "tireless advocate led by principle rather than politics."
Moore, a former Alabama chief justice, has made a number of controversial statements in the past. In 2006, he urged Congress to bar Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, from being sworn in because he would be taking his oath with his hand on a Quran and not a Bible.
"Common sense alone dictates that in the midst of a war with Islamic terrorists we should not place someone in a position of great power who shares their doctrine," Moore said. "In 1943, we would never have allowed a member of Congress to take their oath on Mein Kampf, or someone in the 1950s to swear allegiance to the 'Communist Manifesto.' Congress has the authority and should act to prohibit Ellison from taking the congressional oath today!"
Last year, Moore said the legalization of gay marriage was worse than a 19th century Supreme Court case that upheld slavery.
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