About that judge

How about that Alabama judge, eh? Such a kidder! Wait—he’s serious?! So, that means HE’S the joke, and he’s turning into a national laughingstock. No normal person would care about his downfall, but what he’s doing to the citizens of Alabama is truly awful—not that he cares, of course.

Personally, I think that Roy is well aware that he’s dead wrong about US Supreme Court decisions applying to all states—including Alabama. I’m also sure that he’s well aware that marriage equality is now settled law in all 50 US States, and there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s clearly up to something else.

Like all radical religionist extremists, he thinks he has not just the right, but the duty to impose his own private, personal religious beliefs onto everyone else. That’s always been the case, but there’s more to it than just his religious chauvinism and his theocratic authoritarianism.

Good ol’ Roy’s family makes money from anti-gay bigotry. When he was removed from the court for ethics violations, he made his handsome salary from an anti-gay “non-profit” group. When voters in Alabama put him back on the bench, he officially stepped aside, but the organisation has put his family members on the payroll, including his wife. Whenever Roy puffs up his chest, the group makes more money.

Roy is also a delusional politician, having run for several different offices, and lost each time. Prior to being returned to the bench by voters, he contemplated running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 but, oddly enough, there was no interest in far-right extremist religious crackpots that year. So, he thought he’d run on a far-right political party’s ticket, but didn’t. So, the man clearly has political ambitions, but at 68 years old, his time is running out.

Given his ethical problems and his naked (though delusional) political ambition, his bizarre actions to frustrate marriage equality in Alabama are most likely all about promoting Roy, and nothing else. Sure, he apparently believes all the bullshit he spouts, both religious and about LGBT citizens, but that just provides him with extreme rightwing bonafides with the USA’s radical right, and the base of the Republican Party, and the potential for massive donations that comes with that.

Roy will be slapped down—yet again—and there’s absolutely no doubt about that. He’s facing growing ethics complaints against him because of this issue in particular, and it’s entirely possible he’ll be expelled from the bench yet again. Personally, I think that’s what he’s trying to make happen, and it’s what he wants, so he can run for some office as an imaginary “Christian martyr”.

Roy should be removed from the bench and permanently disbarred. His contempt for the rule of law, for the US Constitution, and especially the US Supreme Court, are so deep, pervasive and extreme that the only way he should ever be allowed in any courtroom is as a defendant. If that’s actually his wish, it may come true.

But Roy is first and foremost a true clown, a performer, and whatever crackpot and extremist views he may genuinely hold, he’s obviously angling for something for himself. We just don’t yet know precisely what that is.