Alabama Supreme Court Throws Tantrum, Defies Federal Judge, Halts Gay Marriages

[joeybee12]

On Tuesday night, the Alabama Supreme Court had a humiliating and highly public meltdown. In a 148-page opinion, the justices held that Alabama’s gay marriage ban remained valid—purporting to overrule a federal judge who recently struck down the ban and ordered probate judges throughout the state to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Only one justice dissented, while another concurred; the other seven joined a bizarre, prolix, occasionally unintelligible opinion that challenges fundamental notions of federal supremacy, constitutional order, and equal protection of the law. It is a gruesome, mangled masterpiece of rambling illogic and venomous vitriol. It is the judicial version of a nervous breakdown, and it deserves to be read in full.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Tuesday’s opinion is that, on its face and by its own terms, it simply does not make sense. Certain portions of the opinion blatantly contradict others, while several sections draw conclusions that are contradicted soon after. (This jumble may be due to the fact that the opinion was issued “per curiam,” meaning it has no single author and was presumably co-written by the seven justices who joined it in full.) Early on, the justices’ main argument seems to be that marriage equality finds no protection in the U.S. Constitution—and that it is unnatural and aberrant:


The family is the fundamental unit of society. Marriage is the foundation of the family. There is no institution in a civilized society in which the public has any greater interest. According to one observer, marriage is a “prepolitical” “natural institution” “not created by law,” but nonetheless recognized and regulated by law in every culture.

That “observer,” by the way, is Robert P. George, whose infamously kinky theory of marriage is, at bottom, fixated on the mythical powers of penile-vaginal intercourse. And, borrowing George’s tactic of disparaging all same-sex marriages as illegitimate, the justices repeatedly put scare quotes around “marriage” and “marriage license” when applying the words to gay couples. This court is not one for subtlety.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/03/04/alabama_supreme_court_defies_federal_judge_on_gay_marriage.html

[truebrit71]

1. I just don't get what is so scary about two adults that love each other wanting to get married?

And how in the wide, wide, world of sports that it harms in any way, shape or form the "institution" of marriage?

Just fucking stupid...

[joeybee12]

2. When people get called on their ignorance and bigotry they react strongly...

Hence the 148 pages of nonsense.

[2naSalit]

3. Once again, the ugly

face of ignorance rears its ugly head for all to see because someone called it out of its hole by invoking equality... a dirty word in the realm of zealotry.

[Zorra]

4. Authorize the National Guard to fix Alabama like JFK did when Alabama refused

to allow black students equal access to schools.

The republicans in Alabama would bring back slavery if they had the power to do so.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jfk-faces-down-defiant-governor