Alabama’s ‘wheel in the ditch, wheel on the track’

The state of Alabama has claimed four of the last six national football titles, an accomplishment that has made our neighbors the target of envy among many on this side of the state border.

There are, however, compensations. Alabama is also stuck with the embarrassment of having Roy Moore as chief justice of its state Supreme Court. In his latest escapade, Moore has ordered probate judges in Alabama to defy a federal court ruling and refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in the state. Legally, Moore has no jurisdiction over probate judges, but some three-quarters of probate judges in the state are refusing to issue licenses, with many citing Moore’s “order” as cover.

As we all know, Alabama has been down this painful road before. Fifty-two years ago, Alabama Gov. George Wallace stood in a doorway at the University of Alabama to block the entry of two black students, defying the orders of a federal judge to desegregate the university. Wallace used much the same arguments now offered by Moore, with both men complaining that the federal courts were overruling decisions made by the majority of Alabama citizens.

There’s more than a bit of irony to that argument. Many conservatives lecture that “this is not a democracy, this is a republic.” Well, this is that catchphrase put into action and given meaning. In the “pure democracy” that conservatives supposedly oppose, all questions would be decided by popular opinion and in much of the country, including Alabama and probably Georgia, gay marriage would still be outlawed. The bigotries of the majority would be given free rein.

But in a republic, the rights of the individual and the rights of minorities are protected by the majority. That’s what the federal court has done in overturning Alabama’s ban on gay marriage.

“Laws that implicate fundamental rights are subject to strict scrutiny and will survive constitutional analysis only if narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Callie Granade, an appointee of President George W. Bush. Granade cited a long list of court rulings that “... the institution of marriage itself is a fundamental right” and concludes that Alabama “fails to demonstrate any rational, much less compelling, link” between its ban on same-sex mar- riage and its supposed defense of the “traditional family.”

There is no counter-argument, or at least none that doesn’t rely on bigotry as its foundation. With Granade’s decision, Alabama becomes the 37th state in the nation in which gay marriage is legal. Georgia is one of the 13 in which it is not, and Attorney General Sam Olens is fighting to see that we remain in that category as long as possible, a choice that history will not judge kindly.

But Georgia’s time is coming; the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to delay enforcement of Granade’s ruling in Alabama gives us a preview of its own decision in the next few months that will settle the matter nationwide. I trust that unlike our neighbors to the west, Georgia officials will accept that ruling graciously and quickly extend to gay Georgians the full rights and privileges granted to everybody else.