Roy Moore’s Dark Vision of Homosexuality

Roy Moore was twice removed as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court because he installed the Ten Commandments at the entrance of the court building. This symbol conveyed the idea of a state-sponsored religion, in violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition against government establishing a religion.

His opinion in a 2002 custody case is the subject of this post. A mother of three children sought to terminate parental custody rights of her ex-husband, on grounds that he was whipping and slapping the children. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that she could not have custody because she presented hearsay evidence of child abuse. Chief Justice Moore concurred, but based his ruling on the mother’s lesbian relationship. Excerpts follow (quoting):

“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.”

…

“ ‘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.”

…

“Natural law forms the basis of the common law. 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.”

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I’ll let readers form their own judgments. I offer a limited legal perspective. Chief Justice Moore cited decisions from the 1700s as authority for denying this lesbian mother’s request. He did not base his ruling on the evidence, but on a 300 year-old view of human sexuality. Mr. Moore is likely the next senator from Alabama.
The ruling is here (C.J. Moore's Concurrence is about halfway down): http://caselaw.findlaw.com/al-supreme-court/1303306.html