‘Tyranny!’: Alabama Chief Justice Warns He Will Not Observe Federal Gay Marriage Rulings
Calling them “tyranny!,” Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore says he will not abide by any federal rulings supporting same-sex marriage.
On Friday and Monday a federal judge struck down Alabama’s ban on same-sex marriage in two separate cases, prompting state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore to issue a three-page declaration promising he will not observe the rulings.
Moore, a Republican, in 2003 lost his job as Chief Justice after refusing to remove from the state’s judicial building a stone monument (above) of the Ten Commandments. In 2012 he won re-election to his former job and today is still the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.
“As Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, I will continue to recognize the Alabama Constitution and the will of the people overwhelmingly expressed in the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment,” Moore wrote. “If we are to preserve that ‘reverent morality which is our source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement,’ then we must act to oppose such tyranny!” he added.
In his letter, addressed to Alabama Republican Governor Robert Bentley, Moore warned “the destruction of that institution is upon us by federal courts using specious pretexts based on the Equal Protection, Due Process and Full Faith and Credit Clauses of the United States Constitution.”
“I would advise,” Moore added, that any marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples “would be in defiance of the laws and Constitution of Alabama,” and claimed that the State of Alabama is not bound by decisions of federal district or appellate courts.
Moore also quoted the bible in his letter, Mark 10:6-9, which begins, “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’”
Last year, Moore told an audience in Washington state that the intent of same-sex marriage is to destroy America. Moore also made headlines last year when he traveled to Mississippi, attacked same-sex marriage, and claimed the First Amendment applies only to Christians. In 2012, Moore claimed that the fight for same-sex marriage is not about allowing two men or two women to marry but about “destroying an institution ordained by God.”
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