By Kayla Moore
Vanzetta McPherson, a former United States magistrate judge, has again written an inflammatory and disrespectful opinion column attacking the Chief Justice of Alabama. “Rising and Falling,” April 14, 2016. Though few may be aware of the fact, McPherson was a board member of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center (“SPLC”) from 2010 to 2013. She may safely be considered a surrogate voice for the SPLC and its campaign of “hate” against the Chief Justice.
If McPherson were still a judge, she would be required to “act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” Canon 2A, Code of Conduct for United States Judges. Now that she is off the bench, however, she apparently feels no compunction in leveling unfounded criticisms against the Chief Justice, seeking to the maximum degree possible to undermine public confidence in his proven integrity.
Three months ago in the Montgomery Advertiser McPherson accused the Chief Justice of “professional lunacy,” called him a “fiasco” who has “a cognitive deficiency,” and asserted that he was “starring in a continuing saga of abuse of power.” “Moore’s Unlawful Conduct Warrants Removal,” (January 8, 2016); “Somebody Say Something,” (January 22, 2016). If McPherson had unleashed such a vitriolic attack on the Chief Justice while she was sitting on the bench, she would have violated the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. Now that she is free of her former responsibilities, however, her acid tongue knows no limits. Her undisciplined writing makes me wonder if she ever possessed the judicial temperament to sit on the federal bench.
In her current column, McPherson states that the Chief Justice “has continued to defy the Supreme Court [on same-sex marriage], and he has unethically exploited his position to encourage … other officials to disobey the law.” She fails to specify, however, what writings of the Chief Justice consist of this supposed defiance of the law. She notes that “there have been serial calls for his resignation.” But she fails to explain that these demands come from groups like the SPLC and the Human Rights Campaign that hate the Chief Justice for his stand for traditional marriage.
“Official complaints against him are still pending at the Judicial Inquiry Commission,” she writes, but Moore refuses to resign.” Apparently in McPherson’s mind the Chief Justice is required to resign voluntarily once the SPLC and homosexual groups have denounced him. McPherson has apparently forgotten that the legal process was not designed to summarily enforce the angry demands of those like the SPLC and the Human Rights Campaign who want to push their own immoral agenda on the people, including the children, of Alabama.
My concern in the midst of this orchestrated campaign against the Chief Justice is that the Judicial Inquiry Commission, fearful of receiving the same malevolent attacks that have been leveled on the Chief Justice, will throw the target of such abuse to the wolves to protect themselves. A majority of the Judicial Inquiry Commission are judges and lawyers who would understandably be nervous at identifying with the Chief Justice and thus suffering the same persecution he is enduring.
McPherson and the SPLC are on a mission to cleanse the public square of all official utterances critical of the homosexual lifestyle and so-called same-sex marriage. In that campaign Christian conservatives are the main target. The SPLC routinely brands as “hate groups” the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, the Traditional Values Coalition, and other Christian organizations that express the Biblical position about marriage and family. The SPLC and Vanzetta McPherson demonstrate their hypocrisy and a true agenda of hate when they abandon all sense of decency and restraint in their crusade to vilify the Chief Justice.
Kayla Moore is wife of Chief Justice Roy Moore and President of the Foundation for Moral Law, an organization dedicated to defending Religious Liberty.
