WND EXCLUSIVE
ALABAMA FIGHT ABOUT 'MORE THAN SAME-SEX MARRIAGE'
Foundation for Moral Law: Americans not obligated to federal judge's 'erratic' drumbeat
Bob UnruhThe senior counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law says the fight over same-sex “marriage” in the state of Alabama, in which the group’s former chief, now Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, is involved, is about much more than just same-sex “marriage.
The dispute is over the decision in 2015 by liberal activists on the U.S. Supreme Court to create same-sex “marriage.” That decision was described by the conservative justices who were in the minority as unconnected to the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. District Judge Callie Granade previously had ordered the fabrication of same-sex “marriage” in Alabama, but the state Supreme Court reviewed the dispute and concluded that the state’s own constitutional provision, and state law, defining marriage as between a man and a woman were enforceable.
When the U.S. Supreme Court issued its order, it set up a conflict with the state. Analysts said that conflict can be resolved but only by a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, not a local judge, and nobody involved has even attempted to bring that case to Washington.
Then Granade this week took it on herself to act as the Supreme Court, ordering the state forever to follow her way of thinking about same-sex “marriage.”
Foundation Senior Counsel John Eidsmoe explained, “Much more than same-sex marriage is at stake here; this involves the whole federal versus state relationship in our constitutional system.”
He continued, “The Obergefell decision was procured by illegitimate means because two justices who had personally performed same-sex marriages refused to recuse, and it is utterly devoid of constitutional support. Article VI, Section 2 says the Constitution, federal laws, and federal treaties are the supreme law of the land; it says nothing of federal court decisions.
“Nothing in the Constitution says every federal, state, and local official has to march to the beat of a federal judge’s drum, no matter how erratic that drumbeat may be,” he said.
Further, a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling said states controlled marriage, and the Constitution doesn’t mention it. The Constitution does say things not assigned to the federal government are left to the states and the people.
As WND reported, Ruth Ginsburg has performed same-sex wedding ceremonies and made supportive public statements. Elena Kagan also has performed same-sex weddings and promoted “gay” rights at Harvard’s law school while she was at its helm.
The foundation filed motions for them to recuse because of their public advocacy for the issue.
But they refused and participated in the ruling anyway, a decision that without their tainted votes would have gone the other way.
Critics contend the two justices appeared to be violating judicial ethics rules that require recusal from a case in which there is even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
A brief from the Foundation for Moral Law, for which Moore worked before he was elected to the court’s highest position in Alabama, explained that Canon 3A(6) of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges provides: “A judge should not make public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court.” 28 U.S.C. sec 455(a) mandates that a justice “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
The foundation pointed out in a submission to the Supreme Court: “Four weeks after this court granted certiorari in these cases, Justice Ginsburg was asked whether parts of the country might not accept same-sex marriage being constitutionalized. She answered: ‘I think it’s doubtful that it wouldn’t be accepted. The change in people’s attitudes on that issue has been enormous. … It would not take a large adjustment.'”
Ginsburg’s interview was with Bloomberg News.
The controversy resurfaced later because even after being told of the appearance of a conflict of interest, Ginsburg again officiated at a same-sex wedding, as the New York Times reported.
The paper said that with “a sly look and special emphasis on the word ‘Constitution,’ Justice Ginsburg said that she was pronouncing the two men married by the powers vested in her by the Constitution of the United States.”
In imposing “gay marriage” on the nation, the five lawyers also overturned the votes of residents of nearly two-thirds of the states who voluntarily had defined marriage as one man and one woman.
The foundation statement said it “took issue” with Granade’s order “purporting to bar state officials from enforcing the provision of the Alabama Constitution that bans same-sex marriage.”
“Judge Granade’s jurisdiction extends over only the Southern District of Alabama,” said Foundation President Kayla Moore. “She has no authority to bind officials in other parts of the state.”
And she added, “It’s not over just because Judge Granade says it’s over. In fact, her order acknowledges that the Alabama Supreme Court’s March 4, 2016, order denying the parties’ motions and petitions did not vacate or set aside the court’s March 3, 2015, writ of mandamus direction probate judges to follow the Alabama Constitution.
“That’s what we’ve been saying all along.”
Granade, through a spokesman in her office, refused comment.
Chief Justice Moore was suspended by the state’s judge monitors because he issued administrative orders to probate judges, the only ones in the state who can issue marriage licenses, to follow the state constitution until the state Supreme Court issued an order. That order subsequently affirmed Moore’s administration order.
WND reported that Granade’s order actually supports Moore’s position.
Granade’s permanent injunction against the state’s law and constitution expressed the same arguments that Moore has been using in his own defense.
“While it was not her intent to help the case of Chief Justice Roy Moore, federal judge Granade’s order proves our argument that the charges against the chief have no foundation,” said Mat Staver, chief of Liberty Counsel and defender of Moore.
“Following the 2015 orders of the Alabama Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, probate judges sought clarity as to what they should do. In January 2016, Chief Justice Moore issued an administrative order advising the judges that the 2015 orders remained in effect and the Alabama Supreme Court would be issuing an opinion on their final disposition,” he said.
“In March 2016, the Alabama Supreme Court left the 2015 orders in place. How then can the Judicial Inquiry Commission single out Chief Justice Moore when he issued an accurate order regarding the status of the case and when the court as a whole agreed with him?” Staver said.
“The JIC is not a court of law, is wrong on the law, and has no business wading into legal disputes. The JIC charge is politically motivated and must be dismissed,” said Staver.
Granade’s order was described as “an attempt to permanently overrule the Alabama Supreme Court regarding marriage.”
Liberty Counsel reported, “According to Granade, the order is needed because state laws against same-sex marriage remain in effect, and the Alabama Supreme Court issued an order in March 2016 affirming three orders from 2015 that prohibited probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.”
Staver also pointed out, “Judge Granade has no authority over the Alabama Supreme Court but she is acting as if she is the top appellate court in the state. The only court that has authority over the Alabama Supreme Court is the U.S. Supreme Court. The other parties are free to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case but they have refused to do so. Judge Granade is not the U.S. Supreme Court.”
He continued, “This order only validates the case that Justice Moore needed to address these conflicting orders. This is what we have said from the beginning. It clearly states the Alabama Supreme Court left the 2015 orders in place.”
Moore was not the only justice unhappy with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Alabama Associate Justice Michael Bolin wrote that the opinion was “without any constitutional basis” but said the “Supremacy Clause forbids state courts to dissociate themselves from federal law because of disagreement with its content or a refusal to recognize the superior authority of its source.”
Bolin said it is “without dispute that the concept of same-sex marriage is not deeply rooted in either this nation’s or this state’s history and tradition – or frankly anywhere.”
“To the contrary, from its earliest days, circa 1800s, Alabama has, with little modification, provided a statutory scheme for the formal licensing and recognition of marriages as being between a man and a woman.”
He said in 1998 and 2006, the legislature and the people “recommitted expressly to the vital nature of the meaning of marriage in our present statutory scheme.”
Not only did the state exercise its sovereign authority to define marriage, as permitted under the Ninth and 10th Amendments, the U.S. Supreme Court majority, just a few years earlier, even acknowledged that authority, in the Windsor case.
Then, abruptly, “without comment concerning, or apology regarding, those words, only two years later the same Justice Kennedy … reversed course and decreed that all states are now required by the Constitution to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples,” he wrote.
The reversal, he noted, was not based on any fundamental right, but “rather on … self-declared beliefs that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.”
And Alabama Justice Tom Parker said the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage decision “conclusively demonstrates that the rule of law is dead.”
Further, the U.S. Supreme Court is damaging itself, he said.
“In marching this country ‘forward’ to their moral ideal, the ‘five lawyers’ comprising the majority in Obergefell have trampled into the dust the last vestiges of the legitimacy of the United States Supreme Court,” he wrote. “There appears to be no restraint on the judiciary, because ‘five lawyers’ believe that they may simply decide, with no legal support whatsoever, that a particular fundamental right be created because they think it fair.
“This is not the rule of law, this is despotism and tyranny.”
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is calling “same-sex marriage” an “intrinsic evil.”
And officials from several counties in Tennessee have adopted statements opposing the Supreme Court.
WND also reported when dozens of top legal scholars from the likes of Washington & Lee, Boston College, Kansas State, Notre Dame, University of Texas, Villanova, Vanderbilt, Hillsdale, University of Nebraska, Catholic University and Regent University issued a statement encouraging all state and federal officials to treat the Supreme Court’s recent creation of “same-sex marriage” as “anti-constitutional and illegitimate.”
“It cannot … be taken to have settled the law of the United States,” said the statement from the American Principles Project.
“We call on all federal and state officeholders: To refuse to accept Obergefell as binding precedent for all but the specific plaintiffs in that case. To recognize the authority of states to define marriage, and the right of federal and state officeholders to act in accordance with those definitions. To pledge full and mutual legal and political assistance to anyone who refuses to follow Obergefell for constitutionally protected reasons. To open forthwith a broad and honest conversation on the means by which Americans may constitutionally resist and overturn the judicial usurpations evidence in Obergefell.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/06/alabama-fight-about-more-than-same-sex-marriage/#sKf4oXe1moSbY30p.99My comments: Today, as Justice Tom Parker said, "The Rule of Law is Dead" in America. "Law" is whatever Five godless, Socialist, Secular Humanist Justices of the Supremely Evil Court say it is--In their Opinion, and in Defiance of God and His Word. Because of this Lawlessness, America as a Nation has not long to exist.
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