Honoring Courageous Judges

On February 9, the Supreme Court refused to further stay the implementation of gay marriage in Alabama.  On the evening of February 8, that State’s Supreme Court’s Chief Justice  Roy Moore had ordered a hold on the issuing of gay marriage licenses.

 You may remember Roy Moore who in 1990’s initially defied a federal court order that he stop the recitation of Christian prayers in his courtroom and remove a Decalogue from the room. In 2000, voters rewarded Moore’s defiance by  electing him chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court . Emboldened, Moore commissioned a sculpture of the ten commandments that he ordered placed in the Alabama judicial building.  In 20o1, a federal court ordered the sculpture’s removal.  When Moore refused, he was promptly removed from office by the judicial ethics panel.  Moore was then re-elected Chief Justice in 2012.  This time the focus has been implementing his personal views on same-sex marriage through the legal system.  

After receiving Moore’s order not to issue  marriage licenses to same-sex couples, some lower court judges defied the order and began issuing licenses as couples lined up outside of courthouses.  Judges in Birmingham and Montgomery led the issuance of licenses, with some performed wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples.  With the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of an extension of the ban on issuance of marriage licenses, there is no further immediate recourse to those who look to stop the marriage of same-sex couples in Alabama.  

The courageous judges who defied Moore’s order may face re-election difficulties in a state where most judges are elected.  My observation is that election of judges hinders courageous court decisions.  Indeed, judicial elections can foster corruption of the legal system in other ways as well, but that argument is for another day.  The reality is that human and civil rights issues beg for courageous lawyering and judging.   The Iowa Supreme Justices who voted in support of gay marriage in their state were not re-elected.  We will see if the courageous Alabama judges face the same fate.