Letter: Moore Merely Followed Law
Montgomery Advertiser, April 5, 2002
Box 1000, Montgomery, AL 36101-1000
Fax: 334-261-1505
I was glad to see that a judicial ethics panel cleared Judge Moore of any
violation of ethics in his concurring opinion against awarding custody of
children to a lesbian mother over their heterosexual father.
Judge Moore was cleared by the panel because his opinion simply expressed
Alabama law. Even his harshly criticized section that "homosexual conduct
is, and has been considered abhorrent, immoral, and detestable," only
echoes language from a 1973 state court decision.
Judge Moore’s opinion addressed a faulty lower court reasoning that said
there was no evidence that the mother’s homosexual conduct would have a
detrimental effect on the children. As Judge Moore pointed out in his opinion,
"the detrimental effect of such conduct is established by the great mass
of Alabama law, which prohibits and condemns homosexual conduct."
Courts must make decisions based on fixed principles, not on the latest
psychological or sociological study or statistical poll.
Moore goes on to state in his opinion that, "To declare that
homosexuality is harmful is not to make new law but to reaffirm the old; to
say that it is not harmful is to experiment with people’s lives,
particularly the lives of children."
Judge Moore just went by the law.
—J.R. Smith, Montgomery
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