Staver claimed bizarrely that the Judiciary Inquiry Commission, which sends ethics complaints to be heard by the Court of the Judiciary, has no jurisdiction over Moore. He referred to one of the complainants, Ambrosia Starling, as being a “transvestite” who illegally performed a mock same-sex marriage ceremony in the state. There’s nothing in writing that you will find that I told anybody to disobey a federal court order.
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Moore is represented by Mathew Staver, Chairman for the Liberty Counsel.
The SPLC, which is based in Montgomery, believes that Moore’s actions violate the federal Canon of Judicial Ethics, which bars judicial officials from making “public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court”.
Last year, HRC and other civil rights organizations joined the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) ethics complaint with the Judicial Inquiry Commission of Alabama, seeking Moore’s removal for violating the obligations of his office. “This is about marriage, and it’s about my legal judgments which I’ve issued in Administrative Orders, which is in my capacity as Chief Justice”.
But this week, he bafflingly asserted that he never instructed the state’s probate judges to disobey a lower district court or the Supreme Court because his actions were in line with state law – even though that state law was invalidated. On that same day Moore issued an administrative order advising the state’s magistrates that they had a “ministerial duty” not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In particular, the SPLC cited a letter Moore wrote to Gov. Robert Bentley on late last January in which he asked the governor to remain steadfast in his opposition to same-sex marriage.
The Alabama Court of the Judiciary removed Moore as chief justice in 2003 for refusing to follow a federal court order for him to remove a statute of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Judicial Building.
“We’re in a serious time in our country”, Moore said. They said the SPLC, Human Rights Campaign and other groups should bring the complaint instead to the U.S. Supreme Court. He refused, so he was removed from his position. Moore told the attendees that he can not separate his faith from his job as chief justice and continues to oppose abortion and same-sex marriage.
Justice Greg Shaw called the notion that Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling applied only to the states involved in the case “silly”.
The ghost of his previous removal was not absent from Wednesday’s press conference.
A complaint filed by Southern Poverty Law Center president Richard Cohen against Moore appears to be the primary focus of the JIC charges, according to the source. All he’s doing, of course, is demonstrating once again why he’s unfit to be the chief justice of Alabama.
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“For months I’ve sat back while complaint after complaint has been filed by persons and individuals and organizations which have mischaracterized and misstated my position”, Moore said Wednesday.
