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The best that can be said about Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court that he's a grandstanding demagogue.
Moore is the 10 Commandments Judge.
That started
about a decade ago, after the lawyer was elected a circuit
judge in Gadsen, Ala. He hung a plaque with the 10
Commandments over his bench and invited prayers in the
courtroom. Those actions inspired a suit from the American
Civil Liberties Union, and in the Dixie Bible Belt, that's
like an endorsement from NASCAR.
In Alabama, they elect all their judges, so in 2000 he
ran for chief justice of the state supreme court with the
slogan Roy Moore: Still the Ten Commandments Judge.
To further that slogan, in 2001 he ordered that a granite
representation of the 10 Commandments be installed in the
lobby of the Alabama Judicial Building.
Further litigation ensued. A federal judge ordered the removal, Moore refused, his fellow state justices suspended him, and at last report, the graven image of the commandments had been removed from public display.
Moore has not argued that the 10 Commandments were some sort of cultural education, illustrating the development of our legal system, along with the Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact. Instead, he's tried to make this an issue of religious freedom and state's rights.
Even without his granite commandments, Moore has the same religious freedom as the rest of us enjoy. He can join any congregation that suits his conscience, tithe to support it, and be active in its affairs. He can preach and pray on his own time, just as all Americans may.
So how is his religious freedom being infringed?
Actually, he argues that there is no religious freedom in
Alabama. In an op-ed piece published last week in the Wall
Street Journal, Moore wrote that We must acknowledge God
in the public sector because the state constitution
explicitly requires us to do so. The Alabama Constitution
specifically invokes 'the favor and guidance of Almighty
God' as the basis for our laws and judicial system.
By that reasoning, atheists, agnostics, polytheists and the like are not eligible for public office in Alabama, since they could not honestly fulfill what he deems their constitutional duty.
Moore is also rather selective in his reading of the
Alabama constitution, since Article I, Section 3 states
That no religion shall be established by law; that no
preference shall be give by law to any religious sect,
society, denomination, or mode of worship; that no one
shall be compelled by law to attend any place of worship;
nor to pay any tithes, taxes, or other rate for building or
repairing any place of worship, or for maintaining any
minister or ministry; that no religious test shall be
required as a qualification to any office or public trust
under this state; and that the civil rights, privileges,
and capacities of any citizen shall not be in any manner
affected by his religious principles.
Since Moore considers the granite Commandments a religious statement, and they're in a state building supported by public funds -- how does he square that with the state constitution he says he's defending?
Not only has Moore failed to read his own state's
constitution, he has a similar problem with the federal
constitution. Consider this from that same op-ed piece,
where he rails at the federal judiciary: No judge has
the authority to impose his will on the people of a state,
and no judge has the constitutional authority to forbid
public officials from acknowledging the same God
specifically mentioned in the charter documents of our
nation, the Declaration of Independence and the United
States Constitution.
For starters, no federal judge has forbidden any public official, including Judge Moore, from acknowledging God. There's a difference between the humble private prayer commended by Jesus and shoving a two-ton monument in people's faces.
Further, the United States Constitution does not mention
God. The Declaration does (in ways like Nature's
God,
Creator
and Divide Providence
), but
not the Constitution. This indicates that Moore spent no
more time reading the U.S. Constitution than he did his own
state's, or he would have noticed that God does not appear
in the federal text, specifically or otherwise.
Thus there's no need to examine Moore's convoluted arguments about the First, Ninth, Tenth, and Fourteenth amendments to the federal constitution. Take him at his own word about the Alabama and the federal constitutions, and it's obvious he doesn't know much about either.
He has that right, of course, just as the citizens of Alabama have the right to elect him. He may even deserve our prayers -- after all, that may be the only way to get him to read the constitutions he says he's supporting.
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