While the pollsters were asking primary voters about interracial marriage, here's what also happened yesterday:
Roy Moore is a walking, talking argument against judicial elections.
In 2001, a month after he was sworn in as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, a position to which he had been elected the year before, Moore came up with an idea to build an enormous stone version of the Ten Commandments (he was elected primarily because of a less grandiose version he’d posted in his old courtroom). Six months after he was sworn in, he had the monument—a big, hulking thing, more than two and a half tons of granite—installed overnight. The monument, and the fight over it, would dominate the remainder of his time on the court. Finally, in 2003, after a series of judges had ruled against Moore and the monument, and he’d defied them, his colleagues did their state a favor and tossed him off the bench.
Roy Moore is a walking, talking argument against judicial elections.
In 2001, a month after he was sworn in as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, a position to which he had been elected the year before, Moore came up with an idea to build an enormous stone version of the Ten Commandments (he was elected primarily because of a less grandiose version he’d posted in his old courtroom). Six months after he was sworn in, he had the monument—a big, hulking thing, more than two and a half tons of granite—installed overnight. The monument, and the fight over it, would dominate the remainder of his time on the court. Finally, in 2003, after a series of judges had ruled against Moore and the monument, and he’d defied them, his colleagues did their state a favor and tossed him off the bench.
Now, not ten years later, it appears that Moore’s headed back to his old job. Yesterday, he won the Republican nomination for the post, dominating the other two candidates in the race, including the incumbent. Almost two hundred and eighty thousand people voted for him—that’s about sixty-five thousand more than the number who voted for Rick Santorum, who won the state’s Republican Presidential primary. He’s expected to win the general election without too much trouble.
There is a case to be made for electing judges. And then there’s Roy Moore. The people of Alabama who pulled the lever for him yesterday voted for cheap political theatre in the service of extremism, not for justice.
One of Moore's more famous opinions is a dissent many times longer than the majority opinion, in which he took a child custody issue as the jumping off point for announcing (emphasis added):
"He got elected what?"
It’d be one thing if Moore had spent the intervening years cleaning up his act and getting serious. He didn’t. Instead, he just kept on making a spectacle of himself. He toured the country with his monument. He flirted with running for President. He ran twice for governor—and lost in the Republican primary both times. He worked as a columnist for WorldNetDaily, the far-right news site that’s become the headquarters of the birther movement. Yesterday, he made a big show of riding his horse to his polling place.
Moore has at least said that he won’t try his Ten Commandments stunt again—though he made it clear that the radical beliefs that prompted it haven’t changed. “I would not return the Ten Commandments because it would be more about me or a monument about me. That’s what I’m identified with and I think it would be detrimental to the true issue. The true issue is whether we can acknowledge the sovereignty of almighty God over the affairs of our state and our law. That I will not back down from. I will always acknowledge the sovereignty of God and I think we must,” he said at a press conference after his victory.There is a case to be made for electing judges. And then there’s Roy Moore. The people of Alabama who pulled the lever for him yesterday voted for cheap political theatre in the service of extremism, not for justice.
One of Moore's more famous opinions is a dissent many times longer than the majority opinion, in which he took a child custody issue as the jumping off point for announcing (emphasis added):
"To disfavor practicing homosexuals in custody matters is not invidious discrimination, nor is it legislating personal morality. On the contrary, disfavoring practicing homosexuals in custody matters promotes the general welfare of the people of our State in accordance with our law, which is the duty of its public servants... The State carries the power of the sword, that is, the power to prohibit conduct with physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution. It must use that power to prevent the subversion of children toward this lifestyle, to not encourage a criminal lifestyle... Homosexual behavior is a ground for divorce, an act of sexual misconduct punishable as a crime in Alabama, a crime against nature, an inherent evil, and an act so heinous that it defies one's ability to describe it. That is enough under the law to allow a court to consider such activity harmful to a child. To declare that homosexuality is harmful is not to make new law but to reaffirm the old; to say that it is not harmful is to experiment with people's lives, particularly the lives of children."Moore is also a former professional kickboxer.
"He got elected what?"
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