Roy Moore’s Email, Phone Records Demanded In Open Records Request After Marriage Equality Battle
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has become very much the icon of the movement to prevent same-sex marriage from becoming legal. For those who agree with him, Moore is held up as an ideal, fighting for the right to control who can marry, and for those who disagree, he is an avatar of anti-gay obstruction. For such social justice groups as the SPLC and the Human Rights Campaign, though, Moore is more — he’s a legal issue.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has filed ethics complaints against Chief Justice Roy Moore, according to the Montgomery Advisor. These center around Moore’s actions in preventing same-sex marriage from being permitted in Alabama, even after a federal order, and his statements about the move afterward — a series of events that gained Moore the support of the KKK, if not of his constituents.
Now, the Human Rights Campaign is also making a move regarding Moore’s actions. They’ve filed an open records request, according to LGBTQ Nation, calling for Roy Moore to turn over email and phone records regarding the same-sex marriage fight.
The HRC believes that Moore may have made a concerted effort to organize anti-gay groups, including the Alabama Policy Institute (API) and the Alabama Citizens Action Plan (ALCAP), to delay the enactment of marriage equality, even after the ruling. The HRC hopes to determine whether Moore contacted these groups and urged them to file emergency petitions that could affect same-sex marriage in Alabama.
They also suggest Moore may have violated judicial codes when he ordered justices across the state to ignore a federal order. If so, the phone and email records will also be evidence in any case that may arise on that matter.
For Moore’s part, according to the Montgomery Advertiser, he still has no regrets about his fight against marriage equality, and will continue to do what he calls taking a stand against the redefinition of marriage. Moore says that the court is “taking away the definition of family” and that he worries that bisexual and transgender people will now insist on being able to marry two people — one of the same gender and one of the opposite.
He says that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of marriage equality this year, Alabama will have to accept that as law, and live by it, but Roy Moore himself will not do so — instead he says he will recuse himself or dissent in any case regarding same-sex marriage.
[Photo by Eric S. Lesser/Getty Images]
