BREAKING (updated): AL Justice Roy Moore Orders Judges to Enforce State Ban on Gay Marriage https://t.co/N9UZ71POtc pic.twitter.com/Cn6iEmP4oF
— Towleroad (@tlrd) January 6, 2016
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has issued an order prohibiting probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. In his order, Moore cites the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling which legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Moore claims that the high court’s ruling only applies to Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, the states directly involved in Obergefell.
I suppose one could look at Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s administrative order in one of two ways: One, it addresses what he legitimately feels is a confusing legal environment surrounding marriage equality. Two, he’s from another planet where reason, compassion, and the rules of legal precedent don’t apply, and you need not comply with laws you disagree with. Oh, and gays are icky.
I’m no legal scholar, so I can’t speak the details of Moore’s ruling- other than to say it’s offensive, self-serving, and steeped in prejudice, hatred, and religious intolerance. It didn’t help his case that he actually cited Kim Davis’s case as part of his justification. Moore wrote of a “disparity [that] affects the administration of justice in this state,” a disparity that he’s had a hand in creating.
Chief Justice Moore isn’t stupid; he at some level has to understand that he’s destined to lose the war he’s waging. With the tide of history and legal precedent turning against him and his fellow homophobes, he has little left but to rage at the dying light. As detestable as he is, I find it difficult not to feel sorry for a sad, pathetic man so steeped in hatred and prejudice wrapped in religious intolerance. He’s going to go down fighting, but ultimately he’ll go down to an ignominious and humiliating defeat. It’s difficult to imagine history treating Moore and his legacy with anything but well-deserved disdain and derision.
Judge Moore's latest charade is just sad & pathetic. My office will ignore him & this. #alpolitics https://t.co/IAtLLoRwlX
— Steven L Reed (@stevenlouisreed) January 6, 2016Back in July, U.S. District Judge Callie Granade, whom you may recall struck down the state’s gay marriage ban as unconstitutional, ordered that her decision was binding because of the Supreme Court’s ruling and said that probate judges must issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Probate judges who follow Moore’s order today could be held in contempt of court.
In effect, Moore has placed Alabama’s probate judges between a rock and a hard place. Ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing marriage equality, and they run the risk of being held in contempt. Disobey Chief Justice Moore’s order…and they risk being held in contempt.
There’s little doubt but that Moore’s order will be slapped down, probably quite soon. In the meantime, one angry, hate-filled “Christian” has decided that his prejudice and homophobia will take precedence over a Supreme Court ruling.In historical terms, Moore is a modern-day version of former Alabama Governor George Wallace standing at the schoolhouse door to turn back black students. Recent history is replete with example of angry White “Christians” who attempted to defeat integration and keep “separate but equal” as both law and custom. They ultimately lost that battle, as Moore will lose his.
The sad thing is that Moore’s intransigence and unbridled hatred impacts that lives of so many Alabama residents who merely want the same rights that accrue to heterosexual couples. They’re not asking for special treatment, just equal treatment under the law. The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court just happens to be a sad and angry old man who believes that his twisted flavor of God should be everyone’s government.
The people of Alabama deserve better.
