Posted on 04/15/2005 4:56:59 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Chief Justice Roy Moore’s new book So Help Me God is a captivating and unflinching first-hand account of a man on the front lines of the battle between religious freedom and judicial tyranny. This Alabama Supreme Court Justice embodies the true definition of patriotism, inasmuch he has risked his career and reputation to stand by his oath of office and refuses to deny his allegiance to the Constitution and the laws of nature and nature’s God for the mere sake of catering to the frenetic, deep-seated anti-religious paranoia of the uber-secular left.
It was on June 9, 1993 that ACLU member Joel Sogol wrote to then-chief justice of Alabama Sonny Hornsby, threatening to sue anyone who continued the time-honored tradition of praying in court. After Roy Moore took office in 1994 and refused to bring a halt to the tradition, the ACLU stepped up their threats of suit over the prayer and, in addition, began hyperventilating over the Ten Commandments plaque Justice Moore had placed in his courtroom. At the beginning of the third month of Justice Moore’s first term of office on March 31, 1995, the ACLU filed suit in U.S. district court against him on the basis that he had illegally imposed his religious beliefs on others in the courtroom, denouncing the prayer as “a religious test.”
The ACLU apparently didn’t feel up to suing all 550 members of Congress and all nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court who have always begun their daily proceedings with prayers. It may even be a sobering revelation to them that our very first president noted in his inaugural address, “no people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States.” Nevertheless, it is doubtful that such words would bear much significance to a pathetic, subversive gang of rogue lawyers who have nothing better to do with their time than to bully public officials out of acknowledging their creator and to throw childish temper tantrums over harmless little plaques.
In a priceless act of civil disobedience, Justice Moore erected a 2½-ton granite Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of the State Judicial Building. Moore would later write in his book that “[t]he display of God’s law was not done to make any bold statement, to intimidate or offend anyone, or to push any particular religion. It was simply a reminder that this country was established on a particular God and His divine, revealed laws; it reflected the Christian faith of our founders.”
Flabbergasted, on Halloween 2001, the ACLU ganged up with Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Southern Poverty Law Center to file suit over the monument. Demonstrating what loving people liberals can be, in a letter to the legal director of Americans United, Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center referred to Justice Moore as a “religious nut in partnership with a fanatical church.” (And showing how smart liberals can be, the letter was accidentally sent to Justice Moore’s attorney, Steve Melchior. Whoops!)
The case was set for trial on October 15, 2002. Less than a month after it ended, on November 18, 2002, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled against the Ten Commandments display, declaring it unconstitutional. In his ruling, Judge Myron stated: “[W]hile the Chief Justice is free to keep whatever religious beliefs he chooses, the state may not acknowledge the sovereignty of the Judeo-Christian God and attribute to that God our religious freedom.” Perhaps Judge Myron would be compelled to rethink his words if he actually bothered to read the Alabama State Constitution which Moore had sworn specifically to uphold, inasmuch as it reads in the preamble: “We, the people of the State of Alabama, in order to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution and form of government for the State of Alabama” (emphasis added).
On March 2, 2005, the New York Times expressed its disapproval of similar displays in between the Capitol and the State Supreme Court in Texas, and in county courthouses in Kentucky, accusing the displays’ backers of not accepting the “separation of church and state” while explaining that “[t]he Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits Congress from making laws respecting an establishment of a religion.” If nothing else, at least these circumstances have given liberals yet another excuse to evince their maniacal infatuation with the “separation of church and state,” a phrase which we are supposed to believe is somewhere in the Constitution.
If a liberal sneezed and you said “God bless you” he would begin spastically whining about the “separation of church and state.” To appreciate this situation from the perspective of the judicial supremacists, the ACLU lawyers and the New York Times editors, we will just have to pretend for a moment that a) the “separation of church and state” exists in the Constitution, b) Congress is somehow responsible for the placement of the Ten Commandments monuments, and c) the monuments in effect represent an establishment of a state religion.
There. Now it sort of makes sense.
To the contrary, however, the left’s beloved “separation of church and state” mantra originated not in the Constitution, but in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 (11 years after the First Amendment was incorporated into the Constitution) regarding their concerns that the Congregationalists may abuse their power to attain a favored position. Explicitly, Jefferson wrote: “[the] wall of separation between church and state…is a one-directional wall. It keeps the government from running the church, but makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government.”
The self-styled progressive elites have typically justified their anti-Christian bigotry by insinuating that religion must stay away from government, and any case in which it does not is an irrevocable step towards theocracy. Their interpretation of the language of the First Amendment demonstrates how little understanding they have of its actual implications.
By including the establishment clause in the Constitution, the framers were preventing the prospects of theocracy such as that which the Pilgrims purportedly fled from in England before settling on the North American shores. However, there is a reason why Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (emphasis added). What Jefferson was taking into account was the imperative necessity of our leaders and authorities to recognize their inferiority to the divine laws of the solar system and their subordinance to a Higher Power, so as not to confuse themselves with that Higher Power and in due course assume a despotic, tyrannical precedence.
The functionality of our democracy is contingent upon the Hobbesian doctrine that man is inherently corrupt and therefore in need of some degree of governmental supervision. The notion of human fallibility is quintessential of the Judeo-Christian doctrines with which our founders specifically harmonized their vision of a free republic. The acknowledgement of that fallible nature is what distinguishes our system from communism – a system which presupposes that man is basically good, and therefore capable of upholding and preserving a utopian, Edinic society. It distinguishes our system as well from that of monarchism and fascism, both of which presuppose that there is such a thing as Divine Right, or human infallibility; that it is possible for a human leader to take on a godlike authority over his people and govern them in a flawless manner. But because our system recognizes that there is no such thing as human infallibility, our branches of power are balanced, and our leaders are appointed through a democratic process by which the majority of citizens decide who gets to represent them, and for how long.
Secularist liberals tend to accuse Christians of seeing things too much in “black and white,” yet they themselves have adopted a black and white perspective by declining to consider the fact that not everything boils down to the two options of theocracy and secularism. A system of government that is religious in nature does not automatically take on the form of theocracy. It does not mean that its subjects must be coerced into submission to a certain designated religious faith. Whether or not we as individuals decide to subject ourselves to personal dependence on religion, we must recognize that our freedom to do so or not do so at our own will is dependent on our democratic system, and our democratic system is dependent on religion.
It is on account of this brand of narcissistic judicial hubris, this denial of subordinance to a Higher Law that an innocent woman was allowed to be inhumanly starved to death recently, that activist judges have been able to recklessly redefine the institution of marriage, and that an unremitting fetal holocaust has been sanctioned by the highest levels of government for 32 years and counting. The more we forget that we are “one nation under God,” the more we will become “one nation under the State.” If this becomes the case, then our rights will become conditional and susceptible to abuse, rather than God-given and immune to meddling. As many could argue, resting our rights solely on the state is like building a house on sand. (Note to liberals: Please pardon the biblical reference.)
Marriage is about procreation....more importantly it is about the shared responsibility taken upon themselves by male and female when they unite.
The reason for concern about these responsibilities is potential family coming from any union of male and female. That is the only (legitimate) reason why government has an interest in marriage. In fact, the reason the government prosecuted polygamist whasisname Green out in Utah was because that number of wives produced a whole courtyard full of kids....a burden on the welfare system...a consequence.
Therefore, they have an interest in polygamy. They could care less if all of Greens wives happen to love him.
Government is not concerned with who I love. They're concerned with the children born as the consequence of that love.
I agree, thank you.
"Since we're all in it together, and we have to take care of all those polygamist children, then we'll just have to put an end to that polygamy stuff."
Would that argument apply to Catholics? It sounds like a good justification for forcing some contraceptives on those wildly breeding catholics. You know, since we're all in it together.
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Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. And consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker's will. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature.
This law of nature, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original. The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man's felicity [happiness].
Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these. - William Blackstone, Of the Nature of Laws in General
Forcing contraceptions on an individual would violate his rights.
What about sterile people? Should they be allowed to marry?
Interesting.
God granted Sarah fertility at a miraculous age. Why would we want to get in the way of other such miracles?
Hopefully, this is going to take us into the meat of your argument on why you think we should move towards gay marriage, based on policy. What is the state's compelling interest in marriage, beyond how it resulted in what was recognized as a positive good for society, a more stable environment to raise future citizens?
Move the definition too far from the way most of traditional religions define it, what would be the interest of any church to recognize state authority in the area of marriage? In practice, many Mormons & Muslims are already doing what I'm talking about. Imagine that kind of practice spreading to the majority in the nation.
I think it is healthy for churches to have their own recognitions of marriage as they do. The Catholics have been doing it since rocks cooled. They don't recognize marriages by divorcees. To get out of that box, they issue disingenuous wholesale annulments. I think it is in the interests of the state to respect and honor profound adult commitments of intimacy, and in fact beyond that, a recognition of the that gays are full citizens of the land, in every sense, and to encourage monogamy. But that is my policy choice, and it will cost the government considerable money in federal benefits and more fraudulent "marriages" if it goes down that road. For one to suggest otherwise, is to not be honest.
There can be no assumption of sterility. The issue is potential for reproductivity.
John & Mary have it.
George and Jake don't.
Women who've had a hysterectomy?
I think our worship of contraception over the past 40 years has ventured into the realm of self-imposed genocide. It shouldn't be too hard to explain this to our children, but I think there are a lot of interested parties manipulating our public education system and entertainment industies trying to keep the young people in the dark.
Women who've had a hysterectomy still have ovaries. You need to suggest a ovectomy (??? is that the right word??), but even then you can still harvest eggs.
The potential is there.
But, as we rack our brains for some kind of exception, we are simply emphasizing the rule: in the vast majority of cases, a male and female are potentially reproductive.
Jack and Jake are never potentially reproductive.
There maybe cloning techniques that make this possible in the future. We need to be ready to deal with those who will argue in favor of invoking the technique. But this also illustrates our common ground: the state has no business playing God, using its power to redefine what it means to be human.
We'd best be very careful where this is all going. We might engineer ourselves out of existence.
The powers of darkness have been actively engaged in deceiving women and encouraging sin in men since the Garden.
They target our precious young ladies and the strength of our nation, our young men. They target them for perversion.
Europe now is reeling due to its failure to reproduce.
I understand that our caucasion and black women are not raising children at a rate even to reproduce themselves....white women because of contraception/abortion and black women because of abortion/contraception.
Our other minority cultures are keeping our population growth at the replacement level. Otherwise, like Europe, we'd also probably be staring down the barrel of an islamic future.
You are correct about it in one direction, but ignored the basis of my question. If the state corrupts the definition of marriage, what will compel the Catholic Church to continue to go along with the program & continue to file it's marriages with the state?
I think it is in the interests of the state to respect and honor profound adult commitments of intimacy, and in fact beyond that, a recognition of the that gays are full citizens of the land, in every sense, and to encourage monogamy.
Why? I thought we were not going to be interested in what people do in their bedrooms anymore & I say that in the broadest terms.
But that is my policy choice, and it will cost the government considerable money in federal benefits and more fraudulent "marriages" if it goes down that road. For one to suggest otherwise, is to not be honest.
It would also force private citizens into "recognition". An example would be someone that rents out a single room in their own home.
I certainly hope the state isn't going to snoop into my medical records to find out if I've had a hysterectomy.
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