Post by Logan on Jan 13, 2016 14:24:43 GMT -6
Gay marriage order puts spotlight again on the 'Ayatollah of Alabama'
When Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore issued his latest controversial order on gay marriage, urging probate judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, many considered it a brazen, last-ditch act of defiance against the U.S. Supreme Court.
The long-contentious chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court didn’t see it that way at all. Merely a humdrum matter of procedure, he explained. “At this point, I am not defying the United States Supreme Court,” the staunch 68-year-old Baptist and Republican said.
When it comes to Moore -- dubbed the “Ayatollah of Alabama” by a civil rights group and chided by the granddaughter of the late George Wallace as being more dangerous than the combative former governor -- little is ever just humdrum procedure.
Few have put their stamp as firmly on modern-day Alabama in such polarizing fashion as Moore. Two decades ago, he became known as the “Ten Commandments” judge after he put up a wooden plaque quoting the biblical commandments in his Etowah County courtroom.
Continue reading at www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-alabama-same-sex-20160112-story.html#nt=outfit .
When Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore issued his latest controversial order on gay marriage, urging probate judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, many considered it a brazen, last-ditch act of defiance against the U.S. Supreme Court.
The long-contentious chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court didn’t see it that way at all. Merely a humdrum matter of procedure, he explained. “At this point, I am not defying the United States Supreme Court,” the staunch 68-year-old Baptist and Republican said.
When it comes to Moore -- dubbed the “Ayatollah of Alabama” by a civil rights group and chided by the granddaughter of the late George Wallace as being more dangerous than the combative former governor -- little is ever just humdrum procedure.
Few have put their stamp as firmly on modern-day Alabama in such polarizing fashion as Moore. Two decades ago, he became known as the “Ten Commandments” judge after he put up a wooden plaque quoting the biblical commandments in his Etowah County courtroom.
Continue reading at www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-alabama-same-sex-20160112-story.html#nt=outfit .