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This thread is about this Alabama case.

Clarence Thomas: ‘Another Example of This Court’s Increasingly Cavalier Attitude Toward the States’

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3256005/posts

In a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Clarence Thomas excoriated his fellow justices for refusing to temporarily stop enforcement of a federal district judge’s ruling that overturned the marriage laws of the state of Alabama and ordered Alabama to recognize as legal “marriages” unions between two people of the same sex.

On Jan. 23, U.S. District Judge Callie Granade ruled that Alabama laws limiting marriage to the union of one man and one woman violated the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the law. Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange petitioned the Supreme Court to prevent the judge’s decision from going into effect until the Supreme Court itself issued its ruling on same-sex marriage—which the court will do this term.

The Supreme Court refused to stay the lower court ruling—with Justice Thomas and Scalia dissenting.

In his dissent from the court’s refusal to grant the stay, Justice Thomas rhetorically smacked his colleagues for disregarding it own standard practices and the deference due to state governments and voters.

“This acquiescence [in the lower court ruling] may well be seen as a signal of the Court’s intended resolution of that question [of same-sex marriage],” wrote Thomas.

“This is not the proper way to discharge our Article III responsibilities,” he said. “And, it is indecorous for this Court to pretend that it is. Today’s decision represents yet another example of this Court’s increasingly cavalier attitude toward the States. Over the past few months, the Court has repeatedly denied stays of lower court judgments enjoining the enforcement of state laws on questionable constitutional grounds.

“It has similarly declined to grant certiorari to review such judgments without any regard for the people who approved those laws in popular referendums or elected the representatives who voted for them,” wrote Thomas. “In this case, the Court refuses even to grant a temporary stay when it will resolve the issue at hand in several months.”
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Another thread to link:
Alabama Chief Justice Ray [Roy] Moore Says Courts Overstepped on Gay Marriage

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3255721/posts

Chief Justice Roy Moore of Alabama, who tried to stop gay marriage there with a last-minute order, insisted Monday that the federal courts have overstepped their authority by ordering the state to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

“The U.S. district courts have no power or authority to redefine marriage,” he told NBC News by phone. “Once you start redefining marriage, that’s the ultimate power. Would it overturn the laws of incest? Bigamy? Polygamy? How far do they go?”

“A lot of states in this union have caved to such unlawful authority, and this is not one,” he said. “This is Alabama. We don’t give up the recognition that law has bounds.”

Gay couples began marrying in Alabama on Monday after the Supreme Court declined to block a federal judge’s order requiring Alabama to license same-sex marriages.

On Sunday night, Moore forbade state probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Marriages went ahead anyway, and at least one probate judge told NBC News that Moore’s order was without merit. “I have a duty to follow the United States Constitution,” said Judge Alan King of Jefferson County Probate Court.

Moore said that the federal rulings were invalid because the party representing the state, Attorney General Luther Strange, has no authority over probate judges, who issue licenses.