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“Alabama Chief Justice Screwed 66 Judges”: Side With Roy Moore Or Side With The Law

Defying history, the law, and common sense, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has issued an order prohibiting Alabama probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Those judges now face a choice between disobeying the law of the land and disobeying their boss. Moore issued his law not as chief justice, but in his administrative role as head of the Alabama court system.

This is not Justice Moore’s first Hail Mary in the lost cause against gay marriage—and he’s not alone. All over the country, activists and law professors are wasting paper on fatuous proclamations that Obergefell v. Hodges is not really the law of the land, or is illegitimate because it’s so horrible, or is somehow, some way not as binding as the Supreme Court said it was (PDF).

Roy Moore is just the only one who’s a state supreme court justice.

As with Moore’s past efforts to delay the inevitable, today’s order was a mélange of the sensible and the risible.

On the sensible side, Justice Moore does have some law on his side—in fact, three extremely narrow, technical threads on which he hangs his order.

First, technically speaking, Obergefell only bound the five states that were a party to it. Since Alabama was not one of those states, technically its law is caught in limbo. Second, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld its same-sex marriage ban on March 3, 2015.

And third, injunctions stemming from two federal cases challenging the ban are, as gellMoore opined last February (PDF), only binding on the executive branch, not the judicial branch—which includes probate judges. This appears to have been an oversight, the result of a pleading error by one of the parties. But rather than extend them in a common-sense way, Moore chose to restrict them in a nonsensical one.

So, as three hyper-technical matters of law, Obergefell doesn’t govern, the Alabama case stands, and the federal injunction doesn’t apply.

But that’s where it all becomes laughable—if not outright dishonest.

It is completely obvious that the Obergefell decision does, indeed, govern all 50 states. The logic it applied to Michigan is equally applicable to Alabama. That’s why LGBT activists broke out the champagne last June. It’s also why judges and clerks around the country, with only a handful of exceptions like Kim Davis, have applied the law and granted same-sex marriage licenses for months now.

Even the cases upon which Moore relies, in fact contradict him. For example, Moore cites an Eighth Circuit case decided on Aug. 11 that said “The [Obergefell] Court invalidated laws in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee—not Nebraska.” But that case affirmed, not rejected, the right to same-sex marriage in Nebraska, and forbade Nebraska from blocking it while the court case wound down to its inevitable conclusion.

This happens all the time. When the Supreme Court rules on an issue, it does not automatically end all the cases that deal with it. But it does make their outcomes obvious. So, while the legal matters are formally resolved, lower courts issue or stay injunctions in light of the Supreme Court ruling.

For example, when the Supreme Court outlawed miscegenation bans in 1967, those bans technically remained on the books in 16 states, and many were not repealed until quite recently. But courts immediately issued injunctions forbidding the enforcement of those laws.

To take another example, many of the sodomy laws at issue in Lawrence v. Texas are technically still on the books. But courts everywhere have prohibited their enforcement.

Obergefell, obviously—laughably obviously—is similar. As the Supreme Court wrote, “the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them… The State laws challenged by Petitioners in these cases are now held invalid.”

Yes, as Justice Moore italicizes in his order, only “the State laws challenged… in these cases” were invalidated last June. But the rest of that paragraph obviously applies to all same-sex couples everywhere. There is no distinction between those in Alabama and those in Michigan, and so the legal outcome of the Arizona cases is a foregone conclusion. To cherry-pick one clause from the entire paragraph is, at best, facetious.

And it’s not unlike the way Moore cites that Nebraska case: snipping out two words that support his position, and ignoring all of the context.

Where the laughter stops, though, is in Alabama’s 66 probate court offices. These judges and their clerks are, with only a handful of exceptions, loyal public servants who are trying to do their jobs. Many of them personally oppose gay marriage, but recognize that they’ve sworn oaths to enforce the Constitution, not the Bible. What the hell are they supposed to do now?

Perhaps the worst part of Moore’s odious order is when he cites the “confusion” among Alabama judges, as if that confusion simply arose on its own somehow. In fact, he sowed it himself, with his court- and common-sense-defying orders last February, and he has watered those seeds with his absurd hair-splitting today.

Of course, Moore’s order will be rendered null and void, hopefully expeditiously, by a federal court in Alabama formally closing the same-sex marriages cases still pending, or extending the injunctions in them to judicial as well as executive employees. The tide of history will not be turned.

But in the meantime, not only has Moore demeaned every married couple in Alabama, straight and gay, he has also thrown his own employees under the bus. If I were a probate judge in Birmingham, I’m not sure what I would do tomorrow morning.

Roy Moore’s symbolic snatch of demagoguery may play well at the polls someday. But in the meantime, he has disrespected Alabama’s LGBT citizens, disrespected the rule of law, and disrespected all those doing their best to enforce it.

 

By: Jay Michaelson, The Daily Beast, January 7, 2015

January 8, 2016 Posted by | Alabama Supreme Court, Marriage Equality, Roy Moore | , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

“As Dangerous As Thomas And Scalia”: Meet The Right-Wing Religious Zealot Who’d Rather Follow The Bible Than The Law

Happiness is boring a hole in your Hebrew slave’s ear with an awl, or so might well say Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice and Baptist zealot Roy Moore.

Before I get to Moore and his grotesque, faith-lathered absurdities, though, a quick digression. Not a week goes by without our egregiously pious politicians outraging rationalist champions of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Mike Huckabee, Republican presidential candidate and onetime Southern Baptist preacher, indicated he would, as head of state, obey the Supreme Being, not the Supreme Court, at least as regards same-sex marriage.

His rival and fellow evolution-naysayer Ben Carson urged his Christian co-religionists to stand up to “progressive bullying,” even though Christians account for seven out of ten Americans, and hardly amount to some beleaguered minority nonbelievers could push around, even if they wanted to.

And the Republican National Committee continues its affiliation with the Christian fundamentalist activist group, American Renewal Project, whose director, David Lane, is now calling for the establishment of Christianity as “the official religion of America.” Lane may have taken cues from that morose stalwart of antipathetic reaction, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Don’t forget, a year ago Thomas, a Roman Catholic, aired the malodorous opinion that the First Amendment (which starts with “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”) “probably” – italics mine, yes, sic, only “probably” – “prohibits Congress from establishing a national religion,” but should not hinder individual states from doing so.

With justices like Thomas, and if a Republican wins in 2016, the Supreme Court may well end up serving as the Doric-columned ossuary of the remains of our once gloriously godless Republic.

Now we come to Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. Speaking last week at the Family Research Council, a hyper-conservative Christian lobbying group in Washington, D.C., Moore defined the pursuit of happiness as a by-product of observing the often malicious edicts and baleful pronouncements pervading cock-and-bull fables originating with pastoral, semi-nomadic primitive tribes two or three millennia ago in a land far, far away; that is, the Bible. Moore declared, in obtusely baroque verbiage, that “It’s laws of God, for He is so intimately connected, so inseparably interwoven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual that the latter cannot be obtained but by observing the former, and if the formerly be punctually abated it cannot help but induce the latter. You can’t help but be happy if you follow God’s law and if you follow God’s law, you can’t help but be happy. We need to learn our law.”

Translation: doing what the Bible says makes you happy.

Some readers might recall Moore from 2003, when he fought a federal injunction ordering him to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments he had arranged to be erected within the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery.  Denouncing federal judges who held that the “obedience of a court order [is] superior to all other concerns, even the suppression of belief in the sovereignty of God,” Moore refused to comply, and was sacked from the court. Thousands of his supporters descended on the site. More than a year passed before the authorities managed to truck away the offending chunk of granite, a monstrosity so heavy it threatened to crash through the building’s floor.

A decade later, already a folk hero to the brute masses of his state afflicted with the malady of faith, Moore, as unrepentant as ever, found himself reelected to Alabama’s highest tribunal. Once again, he could not sit still. When the Supreme Court in Washington legalized same-sex marriage in Alabama last January, Roy forbade state employees and probate judges from carrying out such unions. In a contentious interview with CNN, Moore then proclaimed that “Our rights contained in the Bill of Rights do not come from the Constitution, they come from God.” He denied he was defying the Supreme Court; rather, he was protecting marriage, “an institution ordained of God.” His allegiance, as should now be clear, is not to the Constitution he has sworn to uphold, but to gobbledygook myths and a bogus Tyrant in the Sky. In other words, to the Bible and God.

One might be tempted to dismiss Moore as yet another faith-mongering, red-state ignoramus, but his status as chief justice should give us pause. Moreover, for decades now, those of the religious right have been laboring to force their superstitions, by hook or by crook, on the rest of us. In far too many states, for example, they’ve succeeded in legislatively thwarting Roe v. Wade to restrict women’s reproductive rights. Just last year, they won a Supreme Court case legalizing prayer in town meetings. And if non-belief is steadily gaining ground, those who remain Christian are increasingly evangelical — which is to say, politically active and well-funded. We thus find our cherished secularism under credible, and growing, threat.

In view of this, it behooves us to take Moore’s advice and look at what the Bible actually says. But which part are we to review, the ferociously censorious Testament 1.0, or its supposedly more clement 2.0 update?

Both. The Bible, often obscure and contradictory, could not be clearer about this. In Matthew 5:18-19 Christ decrees: “till heaven and earth pass away . . . whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments [in the Bible] and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” In Luke 16:17, He reminds us that, “It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the [Bible’s] law to become invalid.” His cohort Peter informs us (in Peter 2: 20-21) that “there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation.” Disregard, then, those who would have you think that the Old Testament has, in effect, expired, as well as mealy-mouthed apologists who say it’s all a matter of how you read the text.  And remember, 28 percent of Americans take the Good Book as literal truth, talking snakes and jabbering donkeys and all. It’s not much of a jump to go from literal truth to literal application.

The Bible deluges us with a hailstorm of injunctions, far in excess of the Ten Commandments (first presented in Exodus 20:22-28, but also, with inexplicable alterations and sundry additions, in Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy 5). Aside from don’t kill, murder, or covet wives and asses, and so on, just what does the Bible ordain?

For starters, slavery. Much of Exodus 21 is basically a slaveholder’s manual and contains my opening line about boring through your Hebrew slave’s ear with an awl, which is what it says he deserves if he should fail to decamp on schedule. (Servitude is to last six years.) After departure, the slave’s wife and children belong, of course, to you, his master. If you need cash, feel free to sell your daughter as a sex slave. Beat and have sex with your slaves, but whatever you do, don’t “smite” their eyes or their teeth, or you’re obliged to free them. Remember, though, that Christ orders your slaves to obey you with “fear, trembling, and sincerity, as when [they] obey the Messiah” (Ephesians 6:5), so don’t spare the rod unnecessarily. Exodus (21:29) also warns you to keep your livestock in check. Don’t let your ox gore anyone, or you and the beast must be stoned to death. Do redeem the firstling of an ass with a lamb (whatever that means), but if you don’t, break the former’s neck. Otherwise, don’t “oppress” any “sojourners,” “vex” any strangers, or “afflict” any widows or “fatherless children.” Etcetera.

If believers require orders from some “holy” book to keep from doing these things, as those who claim our morality comes from God suppose, they should be kept off the streets, and certainly away from children.

When it comes to His earthly visiting quarters, the Lord legislates with lavish abandon, proffering binding instructions for ark-building, tabernacle-adornment, and altar-construction, on which His subjects are to scant nothing — not gold, not silver, not bronze. U.S. lawmakers chose to lighten the expense burden by providing churches with tax exemptions. Ancient Israelites found recompense in celestially sanctioned regional hegemony over the “Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite” (Exodus 34). Israelites were divinely enjoined to “destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their idol poles . . . .  For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders.” This criminal pronouncement from long ago inspires radical Jewish settlers today and helps maintain the insolubility of the Israeli-Palestinian impasse.

God then hits red-staters where it hurts, ordaining that “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks” — tattoos — “upon you: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:27). Brothers, no mullets: “Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard” (Leviticus 19:27). Nevertheless, dress nattily: “Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together” (Deuteronomy 22:11). Sisters, betake yourselves to a nunnery — for clothes, if nothing else. “Women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire” (l Timothy 2:9).

Before setting out to follow Jesus, remember to violate Commandment 5 and abhor your parents. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters — yes, even their own life — such a person cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Do, however, abhor discreetly, for if you curse Mom and Dad aloud, they have the right to cut you down on the spot (Leviticus 20:9). Don’t talk with any wizards (ibid, 20:6) or get it on with your sister-in-law, or eat fat (ibid 3:17), or attend church for thirty-three days after birthing a boy (you’ll be unclean), or sixty-six days if it’s a girl, you’ll be doubly unclean (Ibid 12:4-5).

I could go on and on, but you get the point. Thomas Jefferson described “the Christian god [as] a being of terrific character — cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust.” In modern parlance, the Lord is psychotic, and stands in need of urgent psychiatric treatment for an out-of-control Type A personality, pathological solipsism and wanton sadism. It should surprise no one that damnable nonsense is His rule book’s warp and woof, with even the supposedly more humane New Testament deserving disdain as a farrago of “forgeries and lies” (to quote Thomas Paine). The Bible, in the end, merits mercilessly swift dispatch into the dustbin of history, or preservation as an anthropological curiosity, nothing more. Anyone considering it our wellspring of joy is not to be trusted.

So how is it that Chief Justice Moore suffers no opprobrium for saying that you “can’t help but be happy if you follow God’s law?”

Because we commit a sort of secular sin of omission and let him, either out of mistaken notions of politesse or the erroneous belief that criticizing religion as ideology equates with insulting someone personally. This has to stop. Every time we encounter faith-deranged individuals spouting supernatural nonsensicalities, we should request explanations and evidence. We might also cite the above-noted biblical passages and ask how they possibly square with modern life in a developed country. If they say those parts don’t apply nowadays, ask them which verses in the Bible permit them to so pick and choose. By steady, patient questioning, you will expose faith for what it is: finely crafted garbage.

We should not suffer evangelical fools gladly or allow them to determine the boundaries of discourse. We should take to heart the key maxim of British philosopher and mathematician William K. Clifford: “It is wrong, always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” We should point out that we have no problem with privately held religious beliefs, but we will protest and object to any attempt to impose such beliefs or restrictions deriving thereof on us or others.

Resist. You have a world of hard-won rights and secular sanity to preserve, and everything to lose.

 

By: Jeffrey Tayler, Contributing Editor at the Atlantic; Salon, May 31, 2015

June 2, 2015 Posted by | Religious Beliefs, Roy Moore, U. S. Constitution | , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

“Oh, Please!”: Roy Moore Wants Ruth Bader Ginsburg Impeached

The U.S. Supreme Court probably won’t rule on marriage equality until the end of June, and when it does, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is likely to side in support of equal-marriage rights.

For the right, this will be deeply annoying – not just because of conservative opposition to marriage equality in general, but also because much of the right believes Ginsburg shouldn’t be able to participate in the case at all. Right Wing Watch had this report this afternoon:

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore spoke with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Friday about his belief that states should “resist” a potential Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality, saying that Congress and the states should simply defy a court decision they disagree with by stating “that there is no right to redefine marriage” in the U.S. Constitution.

“We have justices on the Supreme Court right now who have actually performed same-sex marriages, Ginsburg and Kagan,” Moore continued. “Congress should do something about this.”

Such as? Moore raised the prospect of impeachment proceedings.

Perkins concluded, in reference to Ginsburg, “This is undermining the rule of law in our country and ushers in an age of chaos.”

Oh, please.

First, the idea that Ginsburg can’t consider the constitutional questions surrounding marriage rights because she’s performed wedding ceremonies is pretty silly.

Second, let’s not lose sight of the context here. Roy Moore, who was once expelled from state Supreme Court because he declared an ability to ignore federal court rulings he doesn’t like, continues to argue that Alabama is not bound by the federal judiciary.

There’s someone in this story who’s “undermining the rule of law in our country,” and trying to create “chaotic” conditions, but it’s clearly not Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

 

By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 26, 2015

May 27, 2015 Posted by | Marriage Equality, Roy Moore, Ruth Bader Ginsburg | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Alabama’s Dangerous Defiance”: A Disturbing Line Of Thinking In The History Of American Federalism

On Tuesday the Supreme Court of Alabama prohibited the state’s probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. This decision effectively throws down the gauntlet, challenging the federal courts to make earlier federal rulings stick — including last month’s refusal by the United States Supreme Court to stay a federal judge’s decision requiring the state to recognize same-sex marriages. It draws on a disturbing line of thinking in the history of American federalism, one that, were it to gain currency as a model, could compromise our entire system of law.

The court’s position is that under the Constitution, it does not have to follow the rulings of lower federal courts; in its ruling, it promises to “defer only to the holdings of the United States Supreme Court.” (That said, Chief Justice Roy Moore’s public statements have been more equivocal; he told a radio host in Birmingham, Ala., “It would be a very hard decision, because I know there’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution that authorizes the Supreme Court of the United States or any federal court anywhere to misinterpret the word marriage.”)

Such extreme states’ rights positions first appeared during an epic battle between the great chief justice John Marshall and Spencer Roane, a member of the Virginia Court of Appeals. The two were bitter political and ideological enemies in the early years of the republic, and Roane had long railed against the authority of the federal Supreme Court over state courts. He repeatedly declined to implement federal decisions with which he disagreed, and refused to recognize the authority of federal courts to review state court rulings. In the end, however, Marshall prevailed.

And yet extreme states’ rights have been asserted more often in political rhetoric than in judicial proceedings. Even in the period of Southern “massive resistance” to Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court’s 1954 desegregation decision, state supreme courts did not try to interpose their own interpretations of the Equal Protection Clause or issue conflicting injunctions against state officials to block desegregation orders by lower federal courts (though some state legislatures did attempt to block Brown’s implementation).

Since the United States Supreme Court will rule on gay marriage in June, it’s easy to dismiss the Alabama court’s ruling as quixotic. But it raises a real issue: not what state courts can do, but rather what they should do. Because state and federal courts operate on entirely separate tracks, the state court’s position that it need not follow lower federal court rulings is technically correct. Yet if our judicial system is to function smoothly, both court systems must, from time to time, refrain from exercising their legal discretion to ignore the other’s handiwork.

The gay-marriage rulings bring this aspect of the state-federal relationship, called comity, into close focus. Alabama’s probate judges are subject to the jurisdiction of both state and federal courts. If both judicial systems exercise their authority concurrently and independently, issuing conflicting constitutional rulings, the probate judges are caught in a Catch-22. Respecting one court’s order necessarily will involve a failure to respect the other’s.

This isn’t just about state courts bowing to federal authority; federal courts have a number of “abstention” doctrines designed to respect the autonomy of state courts. The most famous, called Younger abstention, provides that federal courts should not intervene in pending state court criminal proceedings — even if a credible allegation of a federal constitutional violation exists.

In turn, state courts will often extend comity to the decisions of the local federal courts. Although state courts are not bound by lower federal court decisions, state officials are required to follow federal court orders (this distinction probably explains, at least in part, the willingness of state courts to voluntarily follow lower federal court precedents).

Gay marriage is exactly the sort of issue on which state courts should — and do — defer to lower federal courts. Five federal appellate courts have recently decided whether the Constitution requires a state government to recognize same-sex marriage: Four said yes; only the Sixth Circuit has held that they need not do so. The state courts and governments within these circuits have all acquiesced (Alabama is in the 11th Circuit, which has not ruled on the issue). In fact, Alabama’s State Supreme Court is the only one in the country to go to war with the local federal courts on the issue.

If State Supreme Courts followed the Alabama Supreme Court’s lead, a system of dual courts simply would not work. The United States Supreme Court, which hears only 80 to 90 cases per year, would not be able to disentangle the legal morass that would result if state courts routinely thumbed their noses at the decisions of their local lower federal courts.

Chief Justice Marshall observed, “If the legislatures of the several states may at will annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the Constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery.” This holds just as true if state courts exercise an identical nullification power over federal court orders.

The Alabama Supreme Court’s action represents an unfortunate departure from the cooperative norm that must prevail between these independent judicial systems. Other state judiciaries would do well not to follow its example.

 

By: Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr, Law Professor at the University of Alabama; Op-Ed Contributor, The New York Times, March 6, 2015

March 10, 2015 Posted by | Alabama Supreme Court, Federal Judiciary, Roy Moore | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“… And Justice For All”: The Rule Of Law Defines Civilization And Underpins America’s Precious Democratic Experiment

I’m a little emotional about same-sex couples accepting Alabama Probate Judges’ time-honored offer to newlyweds “You may kiss”. These marriages are all the sweeter because when we were married by an Alabama Probate Judge three decades ago, it was a very different world. Sorta.

Those were the days of “I now pronounced you man and wife.” Unmistakably, a man was a man whatever his marital status. Once married, a woman was reduced to her role. We’d already warned the Judge off the the “obey” thing, but he informed us that another trip to the courthouse and a formal petition — fifty bucks, please — was required for me to reclaim my own surname. It had legally vanished with “I do”. It is a privilege to see justice finally promised to another oppressed group. And what additional satisfaction it is to have a front row seat, watching seemingly immovable traditions — reserving marriage for some, refusing it to others, arbitrarily elevating some over others — dissolving before the irresistible force of a Federal Judge’s orders overturning Alabama’s law banning same-sex marriage — celebration time.

A victory of this proportion is for everyone, a lesson on a grand scale. People died for these rights. Credit especially the martyred San Francisco Board of Supervisors Harvey Milk and his profound insight: “‘Coming out’ is the most political thing you can do.” When individuals risked everything to be true to themselves, debilitating stereotypes dissolved into the faces of our family members, neighbors, friends and coworkers. Millions shared the honor when Mr. Milk was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 2009. Our world is improving because people were brave.

Would that the heroic reporter Dudley Clendinen had lived to see this turn of events. His Out for Good, which we explored with him in 1999, remains an important report on harsh realities still endured by too many homosexuals in the world and in America. The particulars of people’s private lives continue to elicit sensational and hate-filled reactions. Still.

Not surprising is the recalcitrance of the “Ten Commandments” Alabama Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore. Nor is this appalling defiance of the Federal Judge’s direct order out of character. In 2003, his own colleagues removed him from office for defying the law. What does it say for the voting majority in Alabama, that In 2012 they returned him to the same position?

I am amazed that half the judges in the State defied their Chief Justice. Perhaps they realized his argument is “so 1832”, dating back as it does to South Carolinian John C. Calhoun’s (and later the Confederacy’s) notion of “nullification“. Maybe those law-abiding Probate Judges didn’t want to be counted among the more recent neo-nullification gang: Orval Faubus, George Wallace, Lester Maddox and now, notably, the list includes the former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee (who’s also voiced suspicions about dancing).

Whatever their motivation, it’s a breath of fresh air that so many Alabama Probate Judges obeyed the Federal court order and married whomever chose that august and demanding path. This is all the more noteworthy given their Chief Justice’s recalcitrance, which carries the distinctive stench of oppression still lingering across America from white supremacists imposing equally noxious restrictions based on race as well as gender.

The rule of law defines civilization and underpins America’s precious (and precarious) democratic experiment. A less privileged individual would go to jail for the kind of defiance we are witnessing. A senior judge flagrantly breaking the law with apparent impunity is a sad spectacle, even in long-benighted Alabama.

Ultimately, justice will win out in a just polity. Still, it should not be necessary to overcome the willful injustice of atavistic elements of our judicial system.

 

By: Paula Gordon, The Blog, The HUffington Post, February 22, 2015

 

 

February 24, 2015 Posted by | Democracy, Marriage Equality, Roy Moore, Rule of Law | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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