A chief injustice. (Court).

Separation of church and state is right there in the very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but that's of no apparent concern to the chief justice of the Alabama supreme court. Judge Roy Moore--already well-known for his decision to erect a monument to the Ten Commandments in the state judicial building--set off a firestorm February 15 when he issued a caustic, biblically based decision denying a lesbian mother, who lives in California, custody of her children. In placing the three teens with their father, an Alabama resident who's been accused of abusing them, Moore wrote that their mother is unfit because homosexuality is "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature."

The venom in those words quickly prompted the oft-feuding gay political groups the National Stonewall Democrats and the Log Cabin Republicans to release a joint statement. His ruling, the groups said, is "so virulent in its antigay bigotry, so far outside the bounds of ethical canons, and so dismissive of the rights and welfare of the three children in question, that Moore ... should resign."

Birmingham, Ala., attorney Wendy Crew, who represents the mother, said she plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.