In some press reports, it’s the 1960s all over again in Alabama. Fifty years after George Wallace stood in the way of civil rights, a new Wallace, in the person of State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, is standing in the way of gay rights with a move to defy a federal judge’s order legalizing gay marriage. But the current, very temporary, impasse over marriage in Alabama is not the 1960s at all, but rather a screw-up of epic proportions — the combined effect of 1) a badly-designed lawsuit; 2) an overreaching federal judge; 3) an overreaching state Supreme Court chief justice; 4) a pair of misguided and misdirected court rulings; and 5) a state full of confused county officials. The kicker to the story is that the problem will be mostly, if not fully, resolved in a day or two, and besides, the U.S. Supreme Court will settle things not only for Alabama but the rest of the nation in June.

None of that has stopped journalists from declaring a return to the 1960s. “Roy Moore’s move to block gay marriage in Alabama is drawing comparisons to George Wallace’s ‘stand in the schoolhouse door’ in 1963,” wrote the Washington Post. “Long after George Wallace’s stand against integration in the schoolhouse door, to which Chief Justice Moore’s stance has been inevitably compared …” wrote the New York Times. “Moore’s 11th-hour effort to block gay weddings brought immediate comparisons to Alabama Gov. George Wallace,” wrote the Associated Press.