For Alabama Chief Justice, Soldiering in Name of God Is Nothing New

[cbayer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/us/for-alabama-chief-justice-roy-moore-soldiering-in-name-of-god-is-nothing-new.html?_r=0

By RICHARD FAUSSET
FEB. 9, 2015


Chief Justice Roy Moore of Alabama, who ordered defiance of a same-sex marriage ruling, once fought to keep a Ten Commandments marker in a judicial building. Credit Jeff Haller for The New York Times

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The pockmarks and scratches are still visible in the rotunda floor of the Alabama Judicial System building — the permanent scars of Chief Justice Roy S. Moore’s last epic battle over God and the proper role of the federal government.

It was there that Chief Justice Moore, a devout Baptist, had erected a 5,000-pound granite monument listing the Ten Commandments. The federal courts ordered it removed, and in 2003, it was carted away by workers who scuffed the floor. Chief Justice Moore was eventually removed from office by a state ethics panel after defying a federal court’s order that he have the monument removed.

The statue has not returned, but Chief Justice Moore, who was re-elected in 2012, has, and is once again the center of national attention after ordering Alabama’s probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, despite a federal judge’s indication that she expects them to do so.

Chief Justice Moore’s order, issued late Sunday, threw the Alabama court system into disarray. On Monday morning in the big cities of Montgomery and Birmingham, same-sex couples walked ecstatically out of county courthouses with marriage licenses in hand. But judges in most other counties declined to issue licenses. In one case, lawyers representing gay-rights groups fought back, unsuccessfully, when a federal judge denied their request to hold the probate judge in Mobile County in contempt for closing the entire marriage license division.

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[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. He IS the new George Wallace.

Saw some pundit ask him if he wasn't worried about being on the wrong side of history, being considered the 'new Wallace'.

He refuses to see it, but that's exactly what he is.

[cbayer]

2. Wallace eventually came around, but I'm not seeing that happening with

this guy.