Ala. Judge Loses Ten Commandments Appeal

Washington Post ^ | July 1, 2003 | Associated Press

[Lurking Libertarian]

ATLANTA - A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a Ten Commandments monument the size of a washing machine must be removed from the Alabama Supreme Court building.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed a ruling by a federal judge who said that the 2 1/2-ton granite monument, placed there by Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

[snip]

Moore put the monument in the rotunda of the courthouse in the middle of the night two summers ago. The monument features tablets bearing the Ten Commandments and historical quotations about the place of God in law.

[click link to read remainder of article]

[F16Fighter]

"Would everyone here feel the same way if Judge Moore had placed a huge monument to the Koran on the courthouse lawn?"

Yes.

Now all the Judge Moore from your alternative universe would have have to do is find one single fiber of corrolation between Islam and a phantom Muslim Founding Father...

Oh that's right -- Islam had zilch, zip, nada to do with the traditions, laws, or Constitution of the United States of America -- never mind.

[lugsoul]

I am so glad there are at least some conservatives in the Heart of Dixie who feel that way.

[qwertyz]

Page 6 of the opinion just quotes the 10 commandment excerpts--I didn't find the other quotes. Moore probably should have quoted from one of the 13 colonies charters quotations of the 10 commandments rather than Scripture directly. That would have made the historical point and the religious point--two birds with one stone (make that two stone tablets).

[Chancellor Palpatine]

What I liked was how Moore managed to foul up each and every one of his arguments on appeal in the most amateurish fashion possible. What a dork. An incompetent boob.

[jla]

But especially the inscriptions -- it just doesn't pass constitutional muster.

Hi, FTH...Could you elaborate, please.

[Antoninus]

Would everyone here feel the same way if Judge Moore had placed a huge monument to the Koran on the courthouse lawn?

Hey if the Koran had anything to do with our moral, legal, and cultural patrimony in this country, I'd say go for it. As it is, it doesn't. To deny that the 10 commandments isn't part of our cultural heritage is to deny reality.

Check your relativism at the door, por favor.

[jwalsh07]

What I addressed was prohibiting the government from promoting the exercise of a specific religion.

The first amendment requires neutrality as regards religion.

However, we have a slight problem because for my entire adult life the government has been promoting secular humanism to the exclusion of religion. What now?

[lugsoul]

See post # 146.

[proudofthesouth]

Or is he only squandering the state court's time and reputation?

Yes. Once again Alabama is an embarrasement.

[muawiyah]

"... juror walks into the building, sees the religious monument, and then sees a defendant of a different faith, and a connection is made subconsciously, that the fellow is guilty, because he worships one of these heathen religions

Your hypothetical condition is totally ruined when you realize that NOBODY in a court of law is ever identified by his or her brand of religion ~ no one asks ~ no one tells.

Jurors are not identified according to their religion, and it's beyond the authority of the court to define what is or is not a legitimate religion or legitimate religious practice (although the damned judges do it all the time because each and every one of them is a narrow minded sectarian bigot of the worst sort.)

In any case, most jurors are probably not going to recognize the Ten Commandments, and even if they do they will probably identify it as part and parcel of Judaism despite the desperate pleas of some people in FR that it was really Christians who brought down the stone tablets from Mount Sinai.

[lugsoul]

Yes, yes, yes, no and no.

[Catspaw]

You have got to be joking. You seriously think that in some future Islamic-majority America that Muslim government officials who would otherwise want to quash Christianity will be shaking in their boots, their plans thwarted because of the 1st Amendment, much less some dumbass ruling on courthouse decor? I can imagine it now... "Darn it, Achmed -- we would have gotten away with it, too, it weren't for those 11th Circuit infidels and their meddling Constitutional interpretation!"

It doesn't have to be a future Islamic majority America. Think smaller, specifically Dearborn MI (if they could take over Wayne county), or if Muslims decided to take the route of the Free State Project and concentrate in a small state or even a county. The chief judge of the county or state, using Moore's reasoning, could order that county and/or state courts to display Koranic banners and other symbols of Islam to the exclusion of all other religions and the feds could have no say.

[muawiyah]

The Ten Commandments are not a religion at all, nor are they identified as the "one true religion". I wish folks who are so dead set on destroying public knowledge of the Ten Commandments (probably out of their intense hatred of Judaism, the religious tradition that handed them down to the modern world) would keep their terminology straight.

[jwalsh07]

OK one more question for ya.

Do you agree with the ninth circuits, since suspended, ruling "forbidding" students in California from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with the words "under God" included?

[lugsoul]

Well, I don't know what government you are talking about. I've lived most of my life in states that aren't shy about religion, and are exactly neutral about which one they like.

Since you have stated that the Establishment Clause requires neutrality in religion, do you agree that Judge Moore's actions - as defined by his own statements - reflect the neutrality required by the First Amendment?

[qwertyz]

This project--creating an historical monument detailing the link between the Constitution, natural law, and divine law in our Founding Fathers and Colony Charter documents--is a great idea. But no one would have had the balls to "just do it" except someone with a personality and background like Moore's.

[muawiyah]

I have absolutely no concern at all about what a judge's religion is, whether it be Scientologist, Mormon, Hindu, Jehovah's witness... I am perfectly happy with them even if they don't have a religion at all.

However, when they use the First Amendment to crush speech simply because it might have or have had a religious affiliation of some sort, I know I am dealing with a damned bigot. We would be better off with Laplander shamen on the bench than these guys who see some sort of danger in the Ten Commandments, or the 238 Laws, or the 5 fold path, etc.

To the barricades!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[varina davis]

Travesty.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

To the barricades!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Obviously a favored saying of Atomic Dolt.

[DPB101]

That is what happens when you live in a free society. Views you don't like are expressed. I prefer that to the alternative. There is no basis except recent left wing court decisions for censoring religious expression.