A longtime survivor of dozens of political campaigns once told me "When you run for office it doesn't matter what you tell them, as long as it's something they want to hear." Cynical, but true. And, nowhere is it more true than in Alabama where voters choose everything from local dog catcher to Supreme Court Justices.
The same political advisor told me, "If you can't find an issue to run on, invent one."
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has learned those lessons well.
As a circuit court judge he was virtually an unknown until he caused a stir by granting a lesbian custody of her children following a divorce because "homosexuals are unfit."
The outcry from gays and civil libertarians resulted from him being removed from the case, but ensured him re-election in the Bible thumping state.
When he ran for the Supreme Court, he went back to the Bible. Moore had two giant replicas of the Ten Commandments created and installed in his courtroom knowing it would infuriate the ACLU and other liberal groups. He defied a state court order in doing so.
But, it got him enough press coverage to make his name a household word in Alabama.
No one bothered to examine his legal credentials before he was swept into office as the top judge in the state. Roy Schotland, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Centre who studies judicial elections, says that Moore "looked awful as a trial judge. And what made him look awful is exactly, to what a significant number of Alabama voters, made him look terrific."
Last December he was out stumping again. In a speech to 3,000 supporters in a Tennessee arena that was heavily covered by the Alabama media Moore declared that it was time for Christians to "take back the land."
America, Moore charged, "was not founded on Buddha. It was not founded on Mohammad. It was not founded on Confucius. It was not founded on Islam. We don't put our hand on the Quran. We put our hand on the Bible. We were a nation established upon God."
He played to the hearts of conservative Alabama again last week in a second ruling involving a lesbian mother.
On Feb. 15, the Alabama Supreme Court, in a 9-0 decision, stripped a lesbian mother of custody of her three children. The decision was based on undramatic legal principles, not the merits of the case itself. Supreme Courts never retry cases, they rule only on the legal decisions made in lower courts.
Moore could have let the opinion pass quietly. Instead, he filed a 33-page concurrence focused exclusively on the subject of homosexuality, calling it an "inherent evil."
Citing everything from the book of Genesis to Alabama laws (still on the books) that make homosexual sex a crime, Moore wrote that "if a person openly engages in such a practice, that fact alone would render him or her an unfit parent."
The opinion provoked national outrage, with civil rights leaders within and outside the gay and lesbian community calling for Moore's resignation.
Yet, in Alabama it is a different story, however. Moore remains a popular figure.
How popular? The 55 year old judge is being touted as the next Governor of Alabama. He is already being courted by the Christian right to run on the Republican ticket. A war chest is being amassed, and Moore is revelling in the notoriety. His opinion in the child custody case had nothing to do with the law; it was a calculated message to his supporters.
Moore comes from a fine old Alabama tradition of finding a scapegoat and bashing it for the sake of votes. Thirty years ago it was blacks and civil rights. Today gays and lesbians are the target.
It is simplistic to think, however, that by remaining silent, politicians like Moore would never get their message out. There are always the followers of hate.
Thirty years ago the military had to be used to enforce civil rights laws in the South. The battle then is not just in Alabama but in Washington too.
Gays have no civil rights enshrined in the Constitution or federal legislation. Until that comes about outside legal influences cannot be brought to bear on Alabama or other right-wing states.
Civil rights guarantees for African Americans did not come federally without the sit-ins and the Freedom Marches of the 60s. The time has come for gays and lesbians to strike back. Instead of lunch counter sit-ins we need kiss-ins at the Supreme Court of Alabama.
It is time for a new breed of Freedom Marcher. Thirty years ago thousands of Northerners from college students to grandmothers descended on the South to show their distaste for racism.
Let us get those buses packed and roll southward to march through the streets of Montgomery with our Alabama brothers and sisters. Let us show Alabama and the rest of the country we will not tolerate being victimized any longer. The time has come for a new Stonewall.
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