If Roy Moore, the Alabama Supreme Court chief justice suspended from office Friday for trying to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, wants to return to the political theater, he needs to do it in some place other than the judicial branch of government.
It’s pretty evident that Moore doesn’t believe the federal government has any right to tell Alabama — or any state for that matter — what to do. But that issue has been settled three times previously: in the 1960s, when Gov. George Wallace played his anti-integration card to maximum effect; in the 1860s, when Alabama and other Southern states lost the Civil War; and in 1803, when the U.S. Supreme Court said the Constitution assigns the judicial branch the task of interpreting the law.
When it comes to gay marriage, the top rung of the judicial branch has made its interpretation. It happens to be one that Moore dislikes, so in January he told Alabama probate judges that they are still bound by a 2015 state order to deny marriage licenses to homosexual couples.
The topic of this disagreement is less important than what the chief justice did.
Moore is not alone in Alabama when he objects to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage. Plenty of people disagree with that decision, and it does seem that the court is moving too fast in forcing the issue when public sentiment in many states was already moving in favor of gay marriage.
But more than the average citizen, a state Supreme Court chief justice should recognize that when a higher court makes a decision, those below are obliged to uphold it. If the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling and someone refused to follow it, Moore surely would rule that person in contempt of court.
This is the second time Moore has taken on the federal government and lost. In 2003, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary removed him as chief justice when he refused an order to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments.
Moore’s stands have won him many fans in Alabama, so his next move is clear: Run for governor again or for the Legislature. That would spare Alabama the embarrassment of its top judge trying to subvert a higher court.
