Slate: "Alabama Supreme Court Throws Tantrum, Defies Federal Judge, Halts Gay Marriages."

By Mark Joseph Stern

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/03/04/alabama_supreme_court_defies_federal_judge_on_gay_marriage.html

On Tuesday night, the Alabama Supreme Court had a humiliating and highly public meltdown. In a 148-page opinion, the justices held that Alabama’s gay marriage ban remained valid—purporting to overrule a federal judge who recently struck down the ban and ordered probate judges throughout the state to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Only one justice dissented, while another concurred; the other seven joined a bizarre, prolix, occasionally unintelligible opinion that challenges fundamental notions of federal supremacy, constitutional order, and equal protection of the law. It is a gruesome, mangled masterpiece of rambling illogic and venomous vitriol. It is the judicial version of a nervous breakdown, and it deserves to be read in full.


Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Tuesday’s opinion is that, on its face and by its own terms, it simply does not make sense. Certain portions of the opinion blatantly contradict others, while several sections draw conclusions that are contradicted soon after. (This jumble may be due to the fact that the opinion was issued “per curiam,” meaning it has no single author and was presumably co-written by the seven justices who joined it in full.) Early on, the justices’ main argument seems to be that marriage equality finds no protection in the U.S. Constitution—and that it is unnatural and aberrant: