Chief Justice Roy Moore has been suspended from duty and faces a trial before the Alabama Court of Judiciary after a complaint was filed last week. The complaint claims Moore “flagrantly disregarded and abused his authority” when he ordered the state’s probate judges to refuse applications for marriage licenses by same-sex couples. Moore opposes gay marriage based on his religious faith.
In 2003, Moore cited his religious beliefs in disregarding a federal judge’s order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from Alabama’s main judicial building in Montgomery.
Professor Susan Pace Hamill told the Associated Press that Moore’s actions in the two cases are consistent, but still wrong.
“The first thing any first-year law student learns is the supremacy of federal law,” said Hamill, who has observed Moore’s career for more than two decades as a researcher and law professor. “What a federal court says goes.”
