A liberal legal advocacy group on Wednesday filed an ethics complaint against Alabama Chief Justice Roy S. Moore, seeking his removal from the bench.  The challenge by the Southern Poverty Law Center was based upon the judge’s public protests about federal courts’ rulings on same-sex marriage.

Moore had won the chief justiceship for a second time, in 2012, nine years after he was removed from that post by a state courts commission for defying a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state courts building lobby.

The new complaint cited several provisions of the judicial ethics code, claiming that Moore had violated them in a sharply worded letter to the state’s governor, and to remarks he made to the press about that letter and his views on same-sex marriage.

The Center’s challenge was filed with the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission, which enforces ethical rules for state judges.

After his earlier ouster from the chief justiceship, Moore had run unsuccessfully for the governorship and ran a brief campaign for the presidency.  He won reelection in 2012 with 52 percent of the vote in his favor.