Posted on 11/13/2003 6:07:43 AM PST by joesnuffy
WND INTERVIEW Roy Moore: Media 'will not print the truth' Embattled judge decries 'prejudice' of journalists, skewers AG Pryor
Posted: November 13, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern
In the second of a two-part interview, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore takes on the man who prosecuted him before the Court of Judiciary for defiance of a federal judge's order to remove a Ten Commandments display from the state Judicial Building. State Attorney General William Pryor is in his own battle, with his nomination by President Bush to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals facing stiff resistance by Senate Democrats who have questioned him about his strong religious beliefs. WorldNetDaily caught up with Moore in St. Louis Oct. 25. In the first part of this in-depth exclusive, conducted by freelance writer and radio host Jim Bennett, Moore not only argued his case but responded to his harshest critics in the Christian community. In part two, he takes aim at the media, at the controversy surrounding Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, under fire for his comments in church meetings, and the case of Terri Schiavo situation, the brain-damaged Florida woman.
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
Q: How do you view the way the media have covered your story?
A: … I am actually shocked to see the disinformation that comes out of the media. I've watched it in Alabama; it's particularly atrocious. They write articles that have no basis in truth. They will not print the truth. They avoid anything favorable, and they jump on the least accusation from someone. It's vicious, that's all I can say. I'm experiencing it right now, as we speak.
The former governor of Alabama, who hasn't said a word, more or less, to the press for six or seven years, he came out and made an affidavit in support of my motion to recuse the attorney general of Alabama [William Pryor] from prosecuting this case. The governor said, when he appointed the attorney general to the office, he explicitly questioned him on violating court orders which intrude into the sovereignty of the state.
The governor asked the AG what he would do if, for example, the governor were found in contempt. And he indeed said he would support the governor. Today, he turns around and he says that he would obey the rule of law. He will obey a judge who tells him he can't acknowledge God, despite the fact that the Constitution of Alabama says we must.
We find today that that very appointed attorney general, who has since been elected, has reversed his position. And he'll do whatever man says, despite the fact that he knows it violates the Constitution of Alabama and the Constitution of the United States, which he even admits. His position today is directly contrary to his position when he took office. This is what I'm finding. This was put out by the governor. Will the press print it? No. They'll make a mention of it in an article, and then they go on.
If I were caught in the same situation, it would be on every editorial page, every day, over and over. I can find no major newspaper in Alabama which has had a single positive thing to say about the Ten Commandments case.
I am very shocked, very surprised, at the attitude of the media – the written media, the newspapers – regarding this issue. I find less prejudice in the televised media and the radio media. The talk shows, there are some that are favorable and some that are not. But they're at least honest opinions. They allow people to voice their opinions.
The written media, they're particularly atrocious. I had my attorney tell me the other day – and I won't mention the paper – but my attorney told me that one of the writers for this particular newspaper actually told him that they could not get their story through the editors. That's how bad it is.
In this whole procedure, every motion we've made has been denied. The point of the attorney general getting out of the case, when he clearly has a personal interest – two people on the ethics committee are extending past their term of office as appointed by the governor – but the attorney general says that's okay. The justices of the Supreme Court turning to the attorney general for advice on the law – I find it completely hypocritical. They're supposed to be justices on the Alabama Supreme Court, not doing whatever the attorney general says. Yes, there are some weird things going on, quite frankly.
Q: Returning to the accusation that you've created this situation for political gain, what is the personal price you're paying to continue in this fight?
A: Well, besides all the criticism I endure from the papers, you realize that I'm at risk of losing my job because I've acknowledged God. Not only that, I could lose my retirement. My family goes through these agonizing things also, because I'm the only breadwinner. My wife's not employed. This is my career. And I could lose my career. But nothing will stop me from acknowledging God.
Not only do the scriptures speak that we must acknowledge God, but also the very Constitution I'm sworn to uphold says I must acknowledge God. So, we've just gotten to a point in this country where we've let judges take away that acknowledgement. And we've got to stand up for our rights, or else we're going to lose them.
What I'm doing is not for me. It's for the children, and grandchildren and for generations to come. If we don't turn back to recognition that our rights come from God, the creator, then we're going to lose our rights.
We've already lost so much in this country. Our morality has simply gone to pot. You can open any newspaper in any city, and find things that would never have occurred 50 years ago. People are losing their sense of right and wrong. George Washington said in his farewell address on the 17th of September in 1796, "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. … Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
Well, today we're not cognizant of our reason and experience. It should teach us that the further we get away from God, the more crime, the more violence, the more theft and lying we shall have. But we haven't learned that simple lesson. Reason and experience haven't taught it to us.
The more I see of these terrible crimes, the more I see the ACLU stand up and say, "Well, we ought to take down the Ten Commandments!" It just doesn't make sense. The American people know that the moral foundation of our law is found in the Ten Commandments.
What people don't know is that the very restrictions on government are contained within the Ten Commandments, within the two tables of the law. The first table being the duties we owe to God, the second table being the duties we owe to each other – man's law, under God's law.
They don't recognize that the First Amendment guaranteed that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, the duty we owe to the creator and the manner of discharging it. The Ten Commandments themselves, in their two tables, illustrate the fact that government functions under the second table, because God ordained government to do so. But it did not allow an intrusion into the freedom of conscience under the first table of the law.
Joseph Storey in 1833, a Supreme Court Justice for 34 years, said very clearly in his "Commentaries on the Constitution," "The rights of conscience are, indeed, beyond the just reach of any human power. They are given by God, and cannot be encroached upon by human authority, without a criminal disobedience of the precepts of natural, as well as of revealed religion."
In other words, the First Amendment guarantees that man will retain freedom of worship because God gave it to them. So, it's not the right of government, it's not the right of a judge to tell anybody how to worship God, or that they must. But they must recognize that that right comes from God, as our founding documents, our organic law, The Declaration of Independence, says.
Q: To close then, let me get your views on some other struggles not entirely unlike your own. Currently, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a Christian, is being criticized in the mainstream media for sharing, with church groups, his belief that the war on terror is a spiritual battle, that the enemy is Satan, and that enemy will only be defeated when we come at him in the name of Jesus.
A: I'm a military academy graduate. I fought in Vietnam. I applaud Gen. Boykin because he recognizes a basic truth. It's at the basis. Back in the 1950s, President Dwight David Eisenhower, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, they recognized exactly what Gen. Boykin recognizes. But today you see the media intruding their powers into the field of opinion. They sharply criticize anybody that comes out with the truth. And it fits exactly what Jefferson said in his "Bill For Establishing Religious Freedom."
He said that "truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them."
Now, all Jefferson said was that truth will always prevail over error, unless one thing occurs: Mankind enters and cuts off free argument and debate. And that's exactly what the print media, and other media in this nation, are doing – cutting off free argument and debate, so that error does become dangerous.
We've got to open up our minds and our hearts to the truth. These things do derive from how men perceive God and perceive their existence. They do come from spiritual forces. Am I afraid of being criticized? Absolutely not.
I'll never be afraid of being criticized for standing for truth. Neither should Gen. Boykin. He's sworn to uphold the Constitution, just like I am. I applaud him. And I applaud others that stand up for the truth. And it's time that we wake up and realize that we are going to face criticism. "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice in as much ye are partakers of Christ's suffering, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy."
Q: What are your thoughts on the court-ordered removal of the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo, a disabled woman in Florida?
A: When I see judges taking into their hands life and death, and thinking they have a right to do so, they have disregarded the fundamental definition of life contained in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, by which we are guaranteed due process. "Life is the immediate gift of God, a right inherent by nature in every individual; and it begins in contemplation of law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother's womb." So wrote William Blackstone in his "Commentaries on the Laws of England."
We began placing our lives into the hands of judges back in the 1970s, with Roe vs. Wade. And we've got to recognize what that means. That means that no person is safe, because some day they'll start saying that life should end at a certain time. And maybe that's what's happening in Florida.
Jim Bennett is a freelance writer and radio host. He serves as the news director for Moody Broadcasting Network's WDLM-FM, reaching the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa.
Editor's note: "THE MYTH OF CHURCH-STATE SEPARATION" - the special November edition of WND's acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine - documents conclusively that the modern legal doctrine of "separation of church and state" is the work of activist judges, and has utterly no basis in the Constitution.
Your Honor, all due respect, much further back than that. Feudalism, lords, vassals, fief, homage...
Hang in there, Judge!
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