Liberty Counsel, the Christian
conservative legal group representing Alabama Supreme Court Chief
Justice Roy Moore, has filed a lawsuit over his suspension.
Liberty Counsel, which also represented
Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis in her legal fight to deny marriage
licenses to gay couples, is asking a federal court to immediately
reinstate Moore.
The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission
(JIC) forwarded charges to the Alabama Court of the Judiciary
accusing Moore of violating judicial ethics related to his opposition
to marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.
Moore was suspended with pay until the
court hands down its ruling.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of
Liberty Counsel, said that the charges against Moore must be
dismissed because “the JIC has no jurisdiction over an
Administrative Order of the Chief Justice. Only the Alabama Supreme
Court has jurisdiction, and that court agreed with the order.”
After a federal judge in Mobile last
year struck down Alabama's marriage ban, Moore ordered probate judges
to ignore the ruling and refuse to issue licenses to gay couples.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
filed the complains against Moore with the JIC.
Moore has also spoken out publicly
against marriage equality, claiming that such unions go
against God, will lead
to incest, polygamy and child
abuse, and will “destroy”
the United States.
Moore was ousted from the bench in 2003
for refusing to remove from public property a monument of the Ten
Commandments which he had commissioned. Voters returned him to the
bench a decade later.