Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has warned that if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the practice everywhere in the United States, that ruling could "destroy our country."
According to Penny Starr of CNSNews.com, Moore argued that any Supreme Court decision favoring same-sex marriage as a constitutional right "will destroy our country." He indicated that "there are people who would like to see this country destroyed."
"What [the court is] doing is they're toying with something that's like dynamite and will destroy our country," Moore said to CNSNews.com last week.
According to Moore, a favorable ruling would mean that Americans will be forced to accept the practice of same-sex marriage and support such ceremonies with goods and services. He noted that the Supreme Court has previously ruled that marriage is between one man and one woman in the 1885 decision Murphy v. Ramsey.
"What the Supreme Court is about to do, if they do it, is not redefine marriage but destroy the institution of marriage," Moore said.
Starr posted an excerpt from the 1885 decision, which was originally intended to address the issue of polygamy during that period. That practice has since been outlawed in the U.S.
"For certainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth, fit to take rank as one of the co-ordinate States of the Union, than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guaranty of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement," the ruling stated.
Moore emphasized that not all members of the LGBT community want to see the country destroyed. However, he asserted that the destruction of traditional marriage would "literally cause the destruction of our country or lead to the destruction of our country over the long run."
"I'm not saying that everyone who's homosexual wants to see the country destroyed," Moore said. "I'm not saying that. I'm saying there's a push for it."
Moore asserted to Starr that "the Alabama Supreme Court is not bound by any order of the federal district court," adding that they were "parallel court systems." He cited the U.S. v. Windsor case, which struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act but left marriages up to the states, to reinforce his views.
"The federal district courts, according to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 in the case of U.S. v. Windsor, have no authority and have never had authority over marriage and divorce in the state or family, parent, and child relationships," Moore said.
Moore added that "23 states have basically bowed down to the unlawful authority of the federal courts" when it came to same-sex marriage.
According to Starr, the Supreme Court will make its decision on same-sex marriage on the Obergefell v. Hodges case sometime this month.
