Tag Archives: Alabama

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Election 2017: The Moore You Know …

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Roy Moore
Former Chief Justice Roy Moore [official portrait, Supreme Court of Alabama]
It’s hard to be objective about Roy Moore. Ever since his days as circuit judge of Etowah County, Alabama, he’s been a hero to religious conservatives and the bane of civil libertarians. The former powered his two elections to the office of Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, on his promise to “return God to our public life and restore the moral foundation of our law.” The latter effected his two removals from that office over his insistence that his religious beliefs trump the law (including the US Constitution).

That Moore is one of America’s most controversial political figures shouldn’t distract us from the most obvious and important question concerning the latest controversy: Did he, as alleged in a Washington Post expose,  engage in sexual activities with a 14-year-old girl (and other minors) while he was a thirty-something prosecutor?

Moore’s enemies and the Democratic Party want it to be true. They weren’t able to beat him at the ballot box in either of his two runs for Chief Justice, or in this year’s Republican primary for US Senate. And removing a US Senator is harder than beating him in an election before he becomes one.

Moore’s supporters want it to be false — not just because election results depend on it, but because no one likes to learn he or she was conned by a supposed moral exemplar.

The Republican Party NEEDS the allegations to be false. Unless they collapse in a spectacular manner, the GOP loses. They lose a Senate seat if Moore loses the election. If he wins it, the party’s Senate majority is faced with the choice of seating him and thereby publicly owning his alleged sins, or refusing to seat him and facing the ire of his supporters. If the allegations stand up at all, that thin Republican Senate majority is in danger next November either way.

The most sickening aspect of this whole thing is that some of Moore’s supporters tell us the truth doesn’t matter — that it was a long time ago, that he isn’t accused of forcibly raping anyone, and that hey, the Virgin Mary was young too,  so no biggie. That dog won’t hunt.

I personally loathe Roy Moore, and don’t hold with a “presumption of innocence until the charges are proven beyond a reasonable doubt” standard when it comes to personal reputation. Public opinion is not a criminal court proceeding. My personal biases push me toward believing Moore’s accusers.

On the other hand, the timing is suspect. Why are we only now hearing things that, if true, would have sent him home in disgrace, possibly even to prison, at previous points during his long career?

That it took a personal scandal to slow Moore’s advance toward Capitol Hill is the real embarrassment here. Roy Moore should not be elected to the US Senate because he opposes the values the United States is supposedly founded upon. Hopefully Alabama voters will make the election about that and write in Libertarian candidate Ron Bishop.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Marriage: How to De-Politicize the Culture War

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RGBStock Holding Hands

In the United States, same-sex marriage is de facto legal — based on a combination of court rulings and legislation — in 36 states, the District of Columbia and several American Indian jurisdictions.

The Supreme Court is widely expected to come down on the side of ending marriage apartheid nation-wide this summer. Even if it doesn’t do so in one fell swoop, the Constitution’s “full faith and credit clause” will make itself felt over time, if for no other reason that married couples move, then divorce.

Ireland’s late-May referendum may be a global bellwether. 62% of voters in that largely Catholic country brushed aside the objections of church leaders to legalize same-sex marriage.

Some social conservatives, particularly in the United States, seem to have finally got it through their heads that they’ve lost this battle; they want to move on. A few of them even have an inkling of the best way to go about doing so.

On May 19, Alabama’s Senate passed a bill that, if also approved by the House and the governor, would move marriage from the category of state-licensed activity to a matter of contract between parties. No ceremony necessary — if you want one, that will be between you and your church or other social group.

It’s about time! Libertarians have been suggesting this for decades.

With the state out of the business of defining and licensing marriage, that institution can evolve organically as people decide for themselves how to organize their lives.

People who want to marry can just consult a lawyer. Or, and I predict this will happen very quickly, legal services firms will make boilerplate marriage contracts available for inexpensive download, with selections of additional “drop-in” clauses to accommodate most reasonably common scenarios (property settlements in case of divorce, for example, as are handled with “pre-nups” now by some couples).

The Alabama bill, according to news accounts, specifies only two parties, but not their sexes. On the ground, those who want marriages of more than two parties will presumably be able to have workable contracts drawn up to accommodate their desires, neatly sidestepping (for e.g. polygamy) the decade-long political war we just went through over same-sex marriage. Presented with a facially just and valid contract, a court will likely honor and enforce that contract.

Will this approach get the state out of marriage matters entirely? No. Marriage contracts might specify arbitration instead of state court litigation in case of divorce, but when it comes to matters of child custody and child support, the state will probably assert a compelling interest to intervene as it sees fit.

But it’s a start. People are better than politicians at making important life decisions for themselves.

[hat tip for the Alabama story — George Phillies of Liberty For America]

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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