Chief Justice Roy Moore Defies Feds, Urges Alabama’s Judges to Refuse Gay Marriage Licenses

By Sandhya Somashekhar. On the day that same-sex unions became legal in Alabama, local officials in dozens of counties on Monday defied a federal judge’s decision and refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, casting the state into judicial chaos.

Gay couples were able to get licenses in about a dozen places, including Birmingham, Huntsville and a few other counties where probate judges complied with the judge’s decision. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled early Monday that it would deny Alabama’s request to put the marriages on hold.

But in the majority of counties, officials said they would refuse to license same-sex marriages or stop providing licenses altogether, confronting couples — gay and heterosexual — with locked doors and shuttered windows.

Many of the state’s 68 probate judges mounted their resistance to the federal decision at the urging of the firebrand chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore. He is best known for refusing more than a decade ago to comply with a court order to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from the state Supreme Court’s offices.

In Mobile, about 10 gay couples who had expected to be granted licenses first thing in the morning found the marriage-license window closed indefinitely. (Read more about the refusal to marry homosexual couples HERE)

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Alabama’s Largest Paper Mocks Christian Judge: Is Roy Moore a Closeted Homosexual?

By Tim Graham. The Birmingham News is the largest newspaper in Alabama (even though it only publishes a print edition three times a week now.) That could be in part due to leftist pranks. The chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore, has defiantly ordered a halt on gay marriage licenses, prompting News commentator Kyle Whitmire to offer a Readers Poll on Sunday asking “Is Roy Moore a closeted homosexual?”

Liberals apparently love this question, because the poll results are 71 percent yes, 6 percent no, and 22 percent “Maybe, but just that one time in college.” It probably won’t be shocking to note that until he joined the News, Whitmire was a stringer for The New York Times for seven years (2005-12).

Moore, a Baptist married with four children, is best known for insisting on having the Ten Commandments posted in his courtroom, leading to court fights with secularists — and popularity with Alabama voters. (Read more from this story about Chief Justice Roy Moore and his fight against unconstitutional federal acts HERE)

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