By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Monday, U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore called a ruling by a federal judge blocking President Donald Trump’s August executive order that banned transgender people from serving in the military “absolutely ridiculous.”
“The decision of a federal judge in the District of Columbia enjoining President Trump’s executive order on transgenderism in the military is absolutely ridiculous and is a perfect example of the outlandish doctrine of judicial supremacy whereby judges exalt themselves over the Constitution they are sworn to uphold,” former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Moore said. “As recently as 2013, the American Psychiatric Association considered transgenderism to be a mental disorder. And only in 2016 did the Obama administration attempt to impose that delusion upon our fighting forces. To say that President Trump cannot prohibit transgenderism in the military is a clear example of judicial activism. Even the United States Supreme Court has never declared transgenderism to be a right under the Constitution.”
Moore said that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, 74, should be impeached.
“Judge Kollar-Kotelly should be impeached by the House of Representatives for unlawful usurpation of power (Article II, § 4) and lack of good behavior (Article III, § 1), and referred to the Senate for a vote on removal,” Moore said in a statement. “Not only has she placed herself above the Constitution in finding such a nonexistent right, but she has also interfered with the powers of the President as Commander in Chief of the armed forces under Article II, § 2, of the Constitution.”
“Unless we return to faithful obedience to the Constitution and the separation of powers set out therein, our form of government and our liberties will be in dire jeopardy. Congress should not turn a deaf ear to this flagrant usurpation of executive authority,” Moore warned.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly was nominated by President Bill Clinton on Jan. 7, 1997, to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia vacated by Judge Harold H. Greene. Chief Justice William Rehnquist appointed Judge Kollar-Kotelly to serve on the Financial Disclosure Committee (2000–02), and later as presiding judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where she served from 2002 to 2009.
“There is absolutely no support for the claim that the ongoing service of transgender people would have any negative effect on the military at all. In fact, there is considerable evidence that it is the discharge and banning of such individuals that would have such effects,” Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her ruling.
The president’s ban was supposed to go into effect in March 2018.
Moore told the Alabama Political Reporter on Friday that transgenders should not be allowed in the U.S. military and that soldiers did not want to be in a foxhole with someone who does not know what they are.
Moore’s opponent, Democrat Doug Jones has made a statement to the press opposing President Trump’s ban on transsexuals enlisting in the military.
The president ordered the services not to enlist any more transgender service members and that all transgender soldiers currently to serving be discharged by March. Transgender groups sued to block the order. The order by Judge Kollar-Kotelly bars the military from carrying out that order pending the outcome of the case.
Moore is an alumnus of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served in the Vietnam War.
The special election will be Dec. 12, 2017.
Original reporting by ABC’s Lisa Morales contributed to this report.
