A few judges are still refusing to see gay and lesbian couples in Alabama. Texas has had its first lesbian marriage, and now state officials are scrambling to find a way to undo it. And some major national anti-gay figures are preparing to release a new manifesto to stop the freedom to marry.
Roy Moore's supporters are just the sort of people you'd expect. And it seems that there's another Supreme Court justice in Alabama who's just as extreme as Roy Moore:
In an opinion concurring with an order by the Alabama Supreme Court stating that it wouldn’t tell Alabama probate judges whether they had to follow the federal court order that legalized same sex marriage, Justice Glenn Murdock suggested that maybe the court should just stop giving out marriage licenses.
He argues that if the state legislature had known that banning same sex marriage violated same-sex couples' right to equality, then maybe it would’ve been better to make everyone equal by letting no one get married.
“Considering the meaning of the term ‘marriage’ intended by the Legislature in those statues, they may be deemed to survive, or must be stricken as wholly void, if they are not to be applied solely to a union between a man and a woman,” he wrote.
He references a decision that states that laws can be entirely struck down if, “the invalid portion is so important to the general plan and operation of the law in its entirety as reasonably to lead to the conclusion that it would not have been adopted if the legislature had perceived the invalidity of the part so held to be unconstitutional.”
Good luck with that. Aside from the legal hurdles -- he's talking about nullifying a fundamental right for the entire state -- wait until all those straight couples realize they can't get married and that if they go out of state, their marriages won't be recognized at home.
The state officials in Texas trying to nullify the lesbian couple's marriage are also on shaky legal ground -- their license was issued pursuant to a court order. What he's asking the Texas Supreme Court to do is overrule a court order based on a decision that the Texas marriage ban is unconstitutional, without weighing the merits. I'm not sure which is the most laughable line from his filing: "harm is imminent" or "Alabama, too, is experiencing similar confusion."
And aren't these all just the most mature, level-headed reactions you've ever heard of?
And the "Reclaiming Marriage" farce is just about what you'd expect: the Manhattan Declaration redux, just as empty, and no doubt just as effective. It's really nothing more than warmed over Catholic doctrine on sexuality, and you know what I think of that.
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