The Washington Post reports:
Perhaps it was the man’s strong but plain-spoken rebuke outside a Roy Moore rally on the campaign’s final night, condemning the Republican candidate’s past comments lambasting homosexuality. Perhaps it was the admission of the man, a peanut farmer, that he too, had harbored some of the same anti-gay feelings.
Perhaps it was his sign, a photograph of his daughter, a lesbian who, he said, had killed herself when she was 23. Whatever it was, the two-minute video of Nathan Mathis struck a nerve, traveling far and wide as a sort of emotional coda to a wrenching U.S. Senate race in Alabama that has captivated the country.
The Week reports:
“Judge Roy Moore called my daughter Patti Sue Mathis a pervert because she was gay,” the sign read. “A 32-year-old Roy Moore dated teenage girls ages 14 to 17. So that makes him a pervert of the worst kind. Please don’t vote for Roy Moore!” Speaking to reporters, Mathis said he lost Patti Sue to suicide in 1995, and didn’t know what he would accomplish standing there with his sign. “If it’s all to no avail, so be it, it won’t be the first time I’ve done something to no avail,” he said. “My sign speaks for itself and it speaks the truth.”
Father, who says he’s a local peanut farmer in Wicksburg, outside Roy Moore rally talks about losing his gay daughter at age of 23 to suicide. “I was anti-gay myself. I said bad things to my daughter, which I regret.” pic.twitter.com/J0oOU0EJI2
— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) December 11, 2017