The Flame of Intolerance Still Flickers in Alabama

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan

This week, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore released an order that no same-sex marriage licenses be granted in the state. He was responding to a decision by a federal district court that declared unconstitutional Alabama’s ban on gay marriage. When the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the state’s appeal of the ruling, the ban was legally overturned, and Alabama became the 37th state to allow marriage equality. That is, until Chief Justice Moore got involved. Now, the legality of same-sex marriage is in question, with some counties issuing marriage licenses, and some refusing.

Chief Justice Moore is a radical conservative, a strident evangelical Christian. Back in 2003, he made national headlines when he placed a massive granite block, on which were carved the Ten Commandments, inside the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery. He defied a federal court order to remove the religious monument, and was removed from office. Despite being disgraced, he was re-elected in 2012. He recently suggested at an evangelical Christian event that the First Amendment only protects Christians, as, he claims, that was the religion of the nation’s founders. On the TV program “Good Morning America” earlier this month, he speculated what might follow were same-sex marriages allowed:

“Do they stop with one man and one man, or one woman and one woman, or do they go to multiple marriages? Or do they go with marriages between men and their daughters, or women and their sons?”

Defying Moore’s monumental intolerance, loving couples still wed in Alabama this week. The first couple to marry in Montgomery were Tori Sisson and Shante Wolfe, both of whom have adopted the surname Wolfe-Sisson. When I asked Tori how it felt to be the first couple married there after the Alabama ban was overturned, she said, “It feels like we need a nap.” (Watch their interview here.)

Shante explained their insistence on marrying in Alabama: “We said that we wouldn’t go anywhere else, because we work here, we pay our taxes here, and we’re not going to go to another state just to come back and our union not be recognized. We’ve had several people tell us, ‘Well, just go to New York, or just go somewhere else.’ But no, we had faith that Alabama would move in a positive direction. And it has.” Tori has been involved with organizing this historic victory, as the Alabama field organizer for the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay and lesbian rights organization.

Inequality, racism, segregation. These injustices persist with remarkable tenacity.

Read the rest of the column posted at Truthdig.

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