Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore on Wednesday insisted to members of a judiciary commission that he never urged probate judges to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage, defending himself from charges brought by a state ethics panel.

Testifying under oath, Moore called the accusations of him abusing his position "ridiculous."

The ethics case involves an administrative order Moore sent six months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that gays can marry in every U.S. state. Moore said then that because the Alabama Supreme Court had not rescinded an order instructing judges to refuse marriage licenses to gay couples, the state's probate judges remained bound by it.