Alabama Chief Justice Refuses to Accept Marriage Equality

Take action urging the Judicial Inquiry Commission to reprimand Alabama Chief Justice Roy S. Moore, who has urged the governor and probate court judges to continue enforcing Alabama’s unconstitutional marriage ban.

His behavior is unethical, discriminatory, and a violation of his duties as chief justice.

TAKE ACTION BY MIDNIGHT

Every time we make progress in the fight for equality, an obstacle rears its head – one step forward, two steps back.

Take for example the egregious, unethical actions recently taken by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy S. Moore…

In Alabama, a federal court has recently decided that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional, paving the way for marriage licenses to be issued as early as Monday, February 9th – however, Alabama Chief Justice Roy S. Moore has made it very clear: he’s not willing to comply. This could delay marriage equality for some couples throughout the state as he has directed probate judges not to comply with the marriage equality decision.

Issuing multiple statements, both after the federal court’s decision and after the U.S. Court of Appeals’ refusal to issue a stay, Alabama Chief Justice Moore claims that the federal government has no say in marriage and he will continue to enforce the state’s marriage bans. He has even gone so far as urging Alabama’s governor to refuse to issue marriage licenses to loving, committed same-sex couples.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has taken action against Chief Justice Moore by filing a complaint with the Judicial Inquiry Commission of Alabama. Will you join us in urging the commission to investigate Chief Justice Moore’s discriminatory ethics violations?

It should be noted, this isn’t his first blatant ethics violation. In 2003, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary had Roy S. Moore removed from his position as chief justice for violating the First Amendment by installing a monument to the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Courthouse – again, he refused to comply, yet was re-elected. We are asking the Judicial Inquiry Commission of Alabama to consider the same action they took in 2003 to ensure that the rule of law is followed by leaders like Chief Justice Moore.

I ask you to join HRC in calling on the Judicial Inquiry Commission of Alabama to take action against Alabama Chief Justice Roy S. Moore for attempting to influence the governor and state courts to uphold Alabama’s same-sex marriage ban despite the federal ruling. As the highest ranking member of Alabama’s court system, it is his duty to facilitate the decision of the courts, not stand in the way of justice. Chief Justice Moore is setting an irresponsible, unscrupulous precedent as we near a Supreme Court decision on marriage equality and he needs to be held accountable.

Sincerely,

Chad Griffin
President
Human Rights Campaign

Posted: 02 Feb 2015 11:00 AM PST

(Cross-posted on the Google for EDU Blog)When Aboriginals from the Torres Strait Island need support, they turn to their daughters. No, really. In a culture whose history goes back 50,000 years, 70 young girls are using technology to give their families a new way to call for help in emergencies. Last year, Engineers Without Borders Australia taught a group of students to build an emergency response beacon using basic hardware and some code to transmit a user’s location and distress message via radio.

The Torres Strait Aboriginals make up less than 3 percent of Australia’s population, and they’ve historically faced discrimination in society, including in education. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, dropout rates exceed 60 percent in certain regions and Aboriginal students are, on average, 2.5 years behind their peers in scientific and mathematical literacy. The problem is often compounded for girls, who tend to be left out of educational opportunities.

So Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWBA) set out to close the educational and digital divide, teaching the Torres Strait girls how to create emergency beacons from scratch by coding a Raspberry Pi to work with an an LED, GPS module and FM transmitter. Now, their families can use these beacons to signal if brush fires, often used for light, become widespread—or in cases of poisonous snake and spider bites.

A girl works on an LED light for one of EWBA’s projects. EWBA teaches girls in Australia to make emergency response signals by coding a Raspberry Pi to flash morse code through an LED.

This is just one example of an organization doing extraordinary work to make computer science (CS) education available to women and other underrepresented minorities. Computer science has tremendous potential to make a real difference in the world—but only when more people can access and harness it.

That’s the idea behind Google’s RISE Awards, through which we support organizations in their work to inspire students around the world with CS. Since 2010, more than 200 organizations have received an award, and this year, 37 organizations are recieving a culmulative $1.5 million to keep this vital effort humming along. Our partners facilitate programs and activities including teaching girls about the intersection of coding and music production in California, promoting computational thinking through game-design in Mexico, and inspiring children in Brazil to program alongside their parents.

This year, three nonprofits will receive a new “RISE Partnership Award”—a grant to work with one or two partner organizations to help grow their CS outreach to a wider scale. One of the three is Engineers Without Borders Australia, which plans to work with MEET—an organization with expertise on how coding skills can build relationships and break down stereotypes—to integrate their curriculum to reach up to 2,000 girls across Australia, including in Aboriginal communities.

With access to hands-on CS education, the girls of Torres Strait are preparing themselves for the digital economy, contributing to the diversity of our future’s technology, and taking concrete steps to rise above the inequities their community has faced for decades. They’re not alone. We hope that through the RISE Awards and our other efforts to support diversity in technology, these girls and others like them can have an even greater impact. We can’t wait to see it.

Posted by Roxana Shirkhoda, K12/Pre-University Education Outreach