A simple matter of law, justice and dignity
by Tom Sullivan
“This is a simple matter of law, justice and dignity,” says Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of North Carolina-based Campaign for Southern Equality in a web statement. “Our fundamental hope is that LGBT people and families would be treated equal under the law and in the social fabric of the South,” she told the International Business Times.
Beach-Ferrara reacted to the refusal of some probate judges in Alabama to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday to deny Alabama’s request to delay a federal judge’s ruling that green-lighted the marriages in Alabama. The court is set to rule later this year on whether there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage:
Many of the state’s 68 probate judges mounted their resistance to the federal decision at the urging of the firebrand chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore. He is best known for refusing more than a decade ago to comply with a court order to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from the state Supreme Court’s offices.
In Mobile, about 10 gay couples who had expected to be granted licenses first thing in the morning found the marriage-license window closed indefinitely.
Several legal scholars observed that Moore may be within his authority, technically, saying the injunction only prevents the state’s executive branch from enforcing Alabama’s same-sex marriage amendment:
In two memos, one on February 3 and the second on February 8, Moore wrote that probate judges aren’t bound by the injunctions. In the first memo, he said that probate judges aren’t required to defer to the district court’s reasoning—essentially leaving it up to them to decide. In the second, he changed his mind, and ordered probate judges to disobey it “to ensure the orderly administration of justice.”
“Roy Moore got it right,” wrote Florida law professor Howard Wasserman on the Prawfsblawg legal blog last week. “And without bigoted or anti-federal rhetoric.” Probate judges are not covered by the injunction, and Moore is within his rights as head of the judicial branch.
At the U.S. Supreme Court, justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. Thomas wrote, “I would have shown the people of Alabama the respect they deserve and preserved the status quo while the Court resolves this important constitutional question.”
I wonder if Thomas would have felt the same in 1963?