Our view: Roy Moore is delusional about Roy Moore (al.com editorial board)
By AL.com Editorial Board
on January 08, 2016 at 8:00 AM, updated January 08, 2016 at 10:36 AM
How can one explain Roy Moore's latest foray into the issue of same sex marriage in Alabama and America? How can one explain why, after months of quiet, he has thrust himself and our state again to the front of the stage to be mocked and derided as a place of bigotry?
How can one explain Roy Moore?
If you felt that Alabama's Chief Justice's office had erroneously distributed a year-old press release on gay marriage yesterday, you're not alone. Alas, Moore seems hell bent on relitigating an issue that Alabama spent much time (and taxpayer money) arguing in 2015.
Demonstrating a dangerous lack of understanding of Judicial Review, Moore argues that Alabama is not bound to follow last year's Supreme Court ruling because it should only apply to the states listed in the case. Most shockingly, however, he compares compliance with the same-sex marriage ruling with complying to Plessy v. Ferguson, which infamously codified a system of "separate but equal."
Ignoring the fact that Alabama willingly, joyfully championed the segregationist ruling – and that Alabama also fought against the overturn of these discriminatory laws – to use an outdated ruling that has been struck down to justify current actions of discrimination is disgusting. Charitably, we could say that Moore saw an obscure Kentucky clerk get 15 more minutes of attention a few months ago, when her state removed the clerk's names from marriage licenses to assuage the thrice-divorced woman's concerns for "the sanctity of marriage." If anyone is going to be the poster child for anti-gay bigotry on this issue, Moore is determined it will be him, not her. And that it will be Alabama, not Kentucky, that is condemned by future generations.
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more: http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/01/our_view_it_is_time_roy_moore.html
A few days ago, one entire page of our paper was devoted to criticism of Roy Moore. This was the first of three articles on that page.