Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore said
Friday that gay and lesbian couples cannot marry in Alabama despite a
Supreme Court ruling striking down state bans on gay marriage.
In comments to CNN, Moore called the
ruling “even worse” than the court's decision to uphold racial
segregation in 1857.
“I believe it's worse, because it
affects our entire system of morality and family values,” he said.
Moore has worked to undermine a federal
judge's ruling striking down Alabama's ban. He ordered probate
judges to ignore the decision. When that began to fail, the Alabama
Supreme Court stepped in, handing down its own contradictory ruling.
A later federal ruling made it clear that state courts cannot
overrule federal courts, but that decision was put on hold pending
the Supreme Court's decision, which was handed down Friday.
(Related: Federal
judge says ruling striking down Alabama's gay marriage ban applies
statewide.)
In an interview with the Montgomery
Advertiser, Moore said that the state Supreme Court's
injunction prohibiting the issuance of marriage licenses to gay
couples remains in effect.
“There's no basis for such a right in
our history or tradition. To find that it's a fundamental right
under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment is absolutely preposterous,
according to the dissent,” Moore said.
“Right now there's an injunction by
the Alabama Supreme Court that forbids the issuance of same-sex
marriage licenses. That has not been overruled by the United States
Supreme Court,” he added.
When the reporter informed Moore that
gay couples were marrying in the state, Moore said that those
licenses would be called into question.
In a Facebook post, Moore shared a
statement from his wife, who heads the Foundation for Moral Law,
stating that the fight will continue in Alabama.
“[T]he Foundation for Moral Law is
blowing the whistle on the illegitimacy of today's decision,” said
Kayla Moore. “Not only does the U.S. Supreme Court have no legal
authority to redefine marriage, but also at least 2 members of the
Court's majority opinion were under a legal duty to recuse and
refrain from voting. Their failure to recuse calls into question the
validity of this decision.”
“The Foundation is involved with a
same-sex marriage case in the Middle District of Alabama, and that
case will continue. There are issues in this case that the Supreme
Court's decision didn't resolve,” she added.