Is Mayor Newsom like Judge Roy Moore? Rod Dreher at The Corner poses a question with an easy answer--and not the easy answer he implies is the easy answer:

What I don't get is this: why was it wrong for Judge Roy Moore of Alabama to unilaterally declare federal law wrong, and defy it by installing a Ten Commandments monument in a courthouse rotunda ... but it's okay for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to unilaterally declare state law wrong in prohibiting same-sex marriage, and defy it by issuing marriage licenses to gay couples? I mean, I know why the media was outraged by the former episode of grandstanding and not the latter, but as a legal matter, what's the difference?

Moore was made a party to a lawsuit, which he lost. He was ordered to remove the monument, and he defied the court order. If a court orders Newsom to stop and he continues, then he'll be like Moore. It's one thing to act upon one's own "unilateral" decision about what the law means in the first instance, quite another to defy a court order. Moore had his opportunity to defend his legal interpretation in court. Newsom is basing his actions on an interpretation of law, and his day in court has not yet occurred.

There are some similarities too, though. Both men decided to use their position of power to stage a demonstration that stirred the intense passion of a large group of supporters and made them feel deeply invested in preserving the new state of affairs. Maybe I'm not reading enough of the news stories about Newsom, but I don't think he's getting much approval from the press. The events are being covered, but Newsom isn't being hailed as a hero at this point. I think the coverage of the two men at the same stage in the events has been roughly similar. If Newsom is ordered to stop and he persists, he will undermine his own reputation the way Moore did.

UPDATE: Prof. Yin agrees with me (or "tends to agree" with me) about the Moore-Newsom distinction. He goes on to make the point, which is surely correct, that just because what Newsom is doing isn't as bad as what Moore did doesn't necessarily mean it's laudable: there were other ways to test the state law and produce a court opinion on the issue. On the other hand, as I discussed here, there is something to a big, visible demonstration that affects (in both directions) how people think about the legal issues. Eugene Volokh has some good discussion of the Moore-Newsom distinction and of the basis for Newsom's legal interpretation here.