Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Grizzly · 02-18-2002, 03:23 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by fromtheright:
Aw, c'mon, Grizzly, pay us a visit sometime. If you time it just right, you'll probably miss the monthly atheist round-up by the state troopers.

LOL - thanks for the invitation! I'm sure Alabama is not as bad as I have painted it in my mind. I'm sure a visit would be fine. Although thinking about living there with my nonreligious family makes me squeemish.....

ohwilleke · 02-18-2002, 06:51 AM

Absolutely stunning. I've seen trial judges go loco like that, but never a unanimous state supreme court (to which the only recourse is the U.S. Supreme Court and which it is hard to appeal to in a divorce case because divorce is generally a matter of state law and because even if there are illegal reasons there are also probably also valid reasons of state law supporting the decision).

This guy is a criminal who is above the law. Admittedly, there is something about people electing the government they deserve, but that is supposed to happen in the elected branches of government, not the judiciary.

One more reason to think that Lincoln made a mistake in thinking it was worthwhile to hold onto this state.

Grumpy · 02-18-2002, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by hezekiahjones:
D. James Kennedy is offering an Alaska Cruise this August, featuring Chief Justice Roy Moore.

Aw hell. And we just had Bob Larson up here at the local baptist nuthatch. Can't these goobers take their vacations in Branson, MO like they're supposed to??

nogods4me · 02-18-2002, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by hezekiahjones:
D. James Kennedy is offering an <a href="http://www.inspirationcruises.com/Alaska_Cruises/D__James_Kennedy/d__james_kennedy.html" target="_blank">Alaska Cruise</a> this August, featuring Chief Justice Roy Moore.
The <a href="http://www.inspirationcruises.com/Alaska_Cruises/D__James_Kennedy/Kennedy2002AK.PDF" target="_blank">brochure</a> promises both "fabulous cuisine served on gleaming Rosenthal china" and "each day filled with adventure." The latter presumably refers to Judge Moore's creative interpretation of the Establishment Clause.

Anyway we can get Capt. Hazelton of the Exxon Valdez to captain that cruise?

fromtheright · 02-18-2002, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Absolutely stunning. I've seen trial judges go loco like that, but never a unanimous state supreme court (to which the only recourse is the U.S. Supreme Court and which it is hard to appeal to in a divorce case because divorce is generally a matter of state law and because even if there are illegal reasons there are also probably also valid reasons of state law supporting the decision).

ohwilleke,
If you'll read the opinion, rather than opinions about the opinion, you'll see that the biblical arguments were in Moore's concurring opinion, not the opinion of the court. You might also find that there are indeed "valid reasons of state law supporting the decision".

Toto · 02-18-2002, 11:05 PM

<a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=al&vol=1002045&invol=2" target="_blank">In re: D.H. vs. H.H</a>

All nine justices of the Alabama Supreme Court agreed to reverse the Court of Appeals and uphold the Trial Court, based on the narrow principle that the Trial Court's findings of fact could not be reversed by the Court of Appeals. This technical decision may have masked a prejudice against the mother, or not.

The trial court seems to have found that the father needed parenting classes, but that his behavior did not rise to the level of abuse, and that the mother did not carry her burden of proof on the change of custody she requested. The trial court also described the mother as an alcoholic lesbian, although the Court of Appeals thought that she was now sober. She had entered into a domestic partnership in California with another woman.

This was not enough for Moore, who wrote a lengthy concurring opinion:

Quote:

I write specially to state that the homosexual conduct of a parent -- conduct involving a sexual relationship between two persons of the same gender -- creates a strong presumption of unfitness that alone is sufficient justification for denying that parent custody of his or her own children or prohibiting the adoption of the children of others.

None of the other Justices seem to have signed on to this opinion, so there is no basis for appeal.

Moore's opinion cites all of the criminal laws against sodomy, and an assortment of lurid language culled from the past few centuries of homophobia:

Quote:

Alabama's courts, even beyond the context of a custody dispute, have expressed a moral revulsion to homosexual activity, reminiscent of that expressed by Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England. Earlier courts refused even to describe the activity inherent in homosexuality, stating that "[the crime against nature] is characterized as abominable, detestable, unmentionable, and too disgusting and well known to require other definition or further details or description." Horn v. State, 49 Ala. App. 489, 491, 273 So. 2d 249, 250 (1973).

or this:

Quote:

"'If any crime, says Bacon, deserved to be punished in a more exemplary manner, this one certainly does. Other crimes may be prejudicial to society, but this one strikes at its being. A person who has been guilty of so abusing his faculties will not be likely afterwards to have a proper regard for the opposite sex. The tendency is to deprave the appetite and produce in the person insensibility to the most ecstatic pleasure which human nature is capable of enjoying -- the society of women. ...

Then Moore gets seriously weird. He writes that Alabama is a common law state, and the common law is derived from Natural Law, which must be based on revealed scripture. He has somehow worked the Bible into common law and made it the law of Alabama:

Quote:

Natural law forms the basis of the common law. (7) Natural law is the law of nature and of nature's God as understood by men through reason, but aided by direct revelation found in the Holy Scriptures:

"The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man's felicity." (9)

and

Quote:

Homosexuality is strongly condemned in the common law because it violates both natural and revealed law. The author of Genesis writes: "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.... For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh." Genesis 1:27, 2:24 (King James). The law of the Old Testament enforced this distinction between the genders by stating that "[i]f a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination." Leviticus 20:13 (King James).

From the passage in Leviticus 20:13, the early western legal tradition garnered its laws on homosexuality. The Corpus Juris Civilis is the sixth-century encyclopedic collection of Roman laws made under the sponsorship of Emperor Justinian. "It is Justinian's collection which served as the basis of canon law (the law of the Christian Church) and civil law (both European and English)." (9) The following is a statement in Law French from Corpus Juris:

"'Sodomie est crime de majeste vers le Roy Celestre,' and [is] translated in a footnote as 'Sodomy is high treason against the King of Heaven.' At common law 'sodomy' and the phrase 'infamous crime against nature' were often used interchangeably."

Moore's opinion is rather rough and not well type set - probably better grab a copy of it now in all of its wretchedness before he cleans it up.

Edited to add: Moore did not just cite scripture - judges cite everything in opinions. He made the scripture a part of the common law. This kind of legal reasoning (if you can call it that) would give us an instant theocracy.

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]

hezekiah jones · 02-19-2002, 04:35 AM

Fascinating. No doubt Judge Moore is aware that the tradition of English Common Law predates the wholesale introduction of Christianity to the Anglo-Saxon world?

frostymama · 02-19-2002, 04:57 AM

My husband wouldn't believe me that this story was true until he saw it on CNN's website last night. He is a lapsed Baptist and (much to my frustration) has some less than accepting views on homosexuality. Mostly the "It is a choice" thing. Even HE thought this ruling was idiotic and unfair. His exact words were "He quoted scripture? Any judge who would quote Leviticus in reguards to a ruling is ASKING to be removed"

That judge is an idiot.

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: frostymama ]

PopeInTheWoods · 02-19-2002, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by fromtheright:
If you'll read the opinion, rather than opinions about the opinion, you'll see that the biblical arguments were in Moore's concurring opinion, not the opinion of the court. You might also find that there are indeed "valid reasons of state law supporting the decision".

I think most of the objections here are not to the decision itself (which apparently hinged on a technical issue), but to Moore's opinion. Would you care to comment on Toto's post?

Andy

edited to add: fromtheright, you were right in correcting ohwilleke's assumption that all nine justices signed on to the biblical interpretation, I didn't mean to imply criticism of that point.

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: PopeInTheWoods ]

Toto · 02-19-2002, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by PopeInTheWoods:

fromtheright, you were right in correcting ohwilleke's assumption that all nine justices signed on to the biblical interpretation, I didn't mean to imply criticism of that point.

It is true that Moore's opinion was his alone, but it contains such outrageous statements, the other Justices should have registered at least a polite disagreement.

02-19-2002, 04:57 AM	#18
frostymama Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Georgia USA Posts: 927	My husband wouldn't believe me that this story was true until he saw it on CNN's website last night. He is a lapsed Baptist and (much to my frustration) has some less than accepting views on homosexuality. Mostly the "It is a choice" thing. Even HE thought this ruling was idiotic and unfair. His exact words were "He quoted scripture? Any judge who would quote Leviticus in reguards to a ruling is ASKING to be removed" That judge is an idiot. [ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: frostymama ]</p>

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02-18-2002, 06:51 AM	#12
ohwilleke Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Denver, Colorado, USA Posts: 4,834	Absolutely stunning. I've seen trial judges go loco like that, but never a unanimous state supreme court (to which the only recourse is the U.S. Supreme Court and which it is hard to appeal to in a divorce case because divorce is generally a matter of state law and because even if there are illegal reasons there are also probably also valid reasons of state law supporting the decision). This guy is a criminal who is above the law. Admittedly, there is something about people electing the government they deserve, but that is supposed to happen in the elected branches of government, not the judiciary. One more reason to think that Lincoln made a mistake in thinking it was worthwhile to hold onto this state.

02-19-2002, 04:35 AM	#17
hezekiah jones Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: WI Posts: 4,357	Fascinating. No doubt Judge Moore is aware that the tradition of English Common Law predates the wholesale introduction of Christianity to the Anglo-Saxon world?

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