Alabama Supreme Court Judge: Let's Just Abolish Marriage Altogether

[CreekDog]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by NH Ethylene (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: The Advocate

Roy Moore, the antigay chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, isn't the only jurist on the state's high court who is digging in his heels in opposition to marriage equality.

Fellow Supreme Court Justice Glenn Murdock offered a novel — if unlikely — approach to avoiding the legal recognition of same-sex marriages in a brief opinion attached to a related ruling last week, reports AL.com, a website for several Alabama newspapers.

If Alabama must permit same-sex couples to legally marry, perhaps the state should abolish the institution of marriage altogether, Murdock posited in a two-page opinion issued along with the court's refusal to clarify Chief Justice Moore's directive telling probate judges they could ignore a federal ruling bringing marriage equality to Alabama.

Murdock's opinion does note that the question of whether Alabama's probate judges must issue marriage licenses is not actually before the court. But that doesn't stop him from speculating about the motives of Alabama voters and lawmakers when writing and passing the 2006 Sanctity of Marriage Amendment, which was struck down last month by U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. Granade.

Read more: http://www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2015/02/18/alabama-supreme-court-judge-lets-just-abolish-marriage-altoget

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ThinkProgress:

"Murdock suggests that, had the state legislature known that its decision to exclude gay couples from the right to marry was unconstitutional, it might have preferred not to permit anyone to be married in the state of Alabama. This potential preference for no marriages over equality matters, according to Justice Murdock, because of a [1945] state supreme court decision holding that, when part of a state law is struck down, the law may be declared 'wholly void' if 'the invalid portion is so important to the general plan and operation of the law in its entirety as reasonably to lead to the conclusion that it would not have been adopted if the legislature had perceived the invalidity of the part so held to be unconstitutional.'

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/02/18/3623884/state-supreme-court-justice-warns-may-abolish-marriage-entirely-sex-weddings-allowed/

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. Quick! Someone see if his wife wants to fool around!

[Hoppy]

14. She's probably a Bible thumper.

Would you want to listen to the thumping while humping?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

15. I'll drown it out with the headboard.

[Xipe Totec]

2. I double yellow dog dare you, Murdock. nt

[geomon666]

3. Go for it.

At least everyone will be equal.

[closeupready]

11. +100. All I ever asked for, personally.

[Cryptoad]

4. Im not sure all the Bible Thumpers in Alabama are going to

like living in Sin that much!

[Paulie]

10. They can still do their church thing for the sin part

It's the other things like propert rights, tax breaks and other powers (medical, custody, legal,etc) that they would lose. The stuff they want to withhold from other couples.

[RKP5637]

5. Even backward pales to describe these fools in positions of power they neither deserve nor

should be nowhere near.

[lobodons]

6. ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome) is on steroids in Alabama

ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome) and its side effects are on steroids in Alabama.

They just can't seem to deal with reality anymore. Their heads are exploding. KABOOM!!!!!!!!

[Third Doctor]

7. I agree

I live in Alabama and they have been going insane around here since November 2008.

[shenmue]

8. Are you okay? Can we send an airlift?

[Third Doctor]

9. That sounds good.

but have family and roots here and I don't want to abandon them. This place...really gets on my nerves at times.

[LiberalFighter]

12. If they do that all marriages need to be null and void while living in Alabama.

It would void a lot of family laws. Especially related to death and wills. Wouldn't that be fun? Unless, the will specifies a "spouse" would not inherit. Nor would children. Most states it is legislated how the estate is split up when there isn't a will. So much to the spouse and so much to the children. They would get zip if there name is not on the deed or somehow tied in with the asset.

That would be so much fun.

[LiberalFighter]

13. That Sanctity of Marriage Amendment was a bunch of hooey.

If it was a sacred covenant as described with the amendment than the only way the marriage could be performed is with the clergy.

[Arwinnick]

16. So if there is no marriage.

Then it tends to reason there is no divorce.So these lawyers are going to kill the golden goose.I doubt it.

[roamer65]

17. Boy, the thought of two men kissing really bothers them, doesn't it?

I love to see idiots like these just squirm.

[Arwinnick]

18. Yet let one of those men score a TD

then it's grab ass time.

[quakerboy]

19. Right answer, wrong question

at least, it seems like a positive answer to a different question. I cant think of any reason that a mated heterosexual pair, or even a mated homosexual pair, should get a better tax deal than an adult parent/child or asexual best friends who choose to combine households on a permanent basis, so I would ask how we can improve that situation

However, this is not the question this judge was asking when he made these statements. His question was based in hate.

I just like to try and think of ways we can turn these kind of negative responses into results that eventually benefit everyone.

[CreekDog]

20. no, don't take away the benefits of marriage

expand them to others presently denied them.

i don't want people losing social security spousal benefits because you think it's more consistent to not have them.

[quakerboy]

21. Not the benefits

Just the unnecessary restrictions.

The benefits should be tied to a declared legal contract between two consenting parties, not to the legalization the religeous tradition of paired lovers that we call marriage.

I don't want to expand marriage. I want it replaced. I don't think my cousin should have to marry her mom to get legal benefits of a permanent shared life. And I don't want separate but equal. Let marriage be a social convention, much like birthday parties. And have a legal contract that allows multiple people to share things like social security benefits or retirements or custody of children.

[Chemisse]

22. Locking

We are locking this because it is a dupe of this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141017647

Please feel free to post this in GD instead.