Plain and simple – Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore needs to take his punishment and go away.

On Wednesday, Moore lost his effort to regain his job as the state’s high court upheld his suspension for urging defiance of federal rulings allowing gays and lesbians to marry.

Before the ink dried on the decision, Moore was lashing out at the court’s ruling saying it was wrong with indications that he might run for the U.S. Senate or governor. Our thoughts – say it ain’t so, Roy.

It’s time for Moore to learn, similar to former Gov. Robert Bentley and former House Speaker Mike Hubbard, that when in public office, people you serve must be put ahead of self.

Moore’s suspension goes back to a memo he sent state probate judges on Jan. 6, 2016, six months after the nation’s highest court ruled that gays and lesbians have a fundamental right to marry.

Moore said in the memo that a 2015 Alabama Supreme Court order to refuse marriage licenses to gay couples remained in “full force and effect.” Alabama’s probate judges at the time were under a federal judge’s order to stop enforcing the state’s gay-marriage ban following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The Alabama Court of the Judiciary, the state panel that disciplines judges, handed down the punishment against Moore in September, saying he violated judicial ethics by urging judges to defy clearly established law as well as a direct federal court order. Moore contends otherwise, but the suspension was upheld based on the documentation.

This is the second time Moore has been removed from his duties as chief justice. The first was in 2003, after he refused to comply with a federal court order to remove a boulder-sized Ten Commandments monument that he had installed in the rotunda of the state judicial building. Moore was re-elected as chief justice in 2012.

Moore’s opposition to same-sex marriage spilled over into his judicial duty. His stance on the Ten Commandments was the same problem.

We understand Moore is entitled to his views and many people agree with him, mostly on the moral side of the argument. Nonetheless, the chief justice had an obligation as the leading judiciary figure in Alabama to rise above personal feelings so he could fairly judge issues for people of all walks of life, based on the Constitution.

In our opinion, Alabama has suffered through a series of political embarrassments to last a lifetime. After all, the swelling of the state’s figurative black eye is still hurting from Bentley’s non-sympathetic resignation last week.

The upcoming special election for the Senate seat presently held by Luther Strange is an opportunity for Alabama voters to send a positive message to the rest of the nation by electing an individual who embraces service in its traditional meaning in America – a tradition to be a servant of the people while maintaining integrity and respect for the Constitution.

Moore does not belong in that political conversation, and we hope he understand it’s time to put Alabama first before he officially launches another political campaign.