Judge Holds Firm, Won't Remove Ten Commandments Sculpture

CNSNews.com ^ | 8/15/03 | Steve Brown

[lugsoul]

The thread shifts again.

$125,000,000 of taxpayer money, to date, on this issue. Who is getting it, and for what?

[gitmogrunt]

Is it time to march to Montgomery and show support for this judge?

[moneyrunner]

You keep quoting this ridiculous dollar figure. Until you show an itemized accounting of where this number comes from, you are making yourself look like a kook.

[lugsoul]

It comes from Judge Roy Moore's own mouth. Maybe he is the kook.

[lugsoul]

Go to MSNBC, watch the video of his statement yesterday. I'm still looking for a transcript to post, but he said it. I couldn't believe it when I read it in the FoxNews article, but he did say it. You can go read it there, as well.

I'd love to have an itemized accounting. If you see one, please share. We do need to know who is ripping off the citizens of Alabama.

[moneyrunner]

You don’t seem to be a fan of the judge. Why take his word for this number?

[lugsoul]

Actually, I've already posted my opinion that I think he is lying through his teeth about the number - it wasn't just an error, because he also said that $62.5 MILLION had been spent on "experts and consultants" in the case and that the taxpayers were spending $25,000 a day on it.

If anyone has information that the numbers are false and Moore was just lying to pump up his attack on Judge Thompson, I'd love to see it. But those are the only numbers we have at the moment.

[Guenevere]

.....I think the dollar amount is not causing this animus you have with the good judge.--

.-perhaps it's his politics & moral/spiritual conscience that you don't care for.

I admire his efforts......and hope he succeeds!

[lugsoul]

Well, if you'd read my posts, you'd see that I disagreed with him on Consitutional grounds before I heard him spout that number. I freely acknowledge that. But the number calls much more into question than his interpretation of the Constitution.

Next time you want to attribute motive to me, just ask.

[firewalk]

bttt

[Guenevere]

#10..The only motive I'm attibuting to you is the one you represented on this thread......and also your suggesting the good judge is a 'kook'...

..I see no mention of the Constitution....

...but my opinion stands----I hope he makes it!

[lugsoul]

Wow, you can mischaracterize just about anything.

First, I was called a "kook" for post the $125M number. My reply was that was Moore's number - ergo, if the number makes one a kook...

As for my Constutional differences with Moore, I said clearly that was "to date" before I heard of the number. This thread came up to day. Check the ones from yesterday, or the day before, or the day before.

I'm more than happy to have a reasoned discussion of these issues with people who don't feel driven to misstate what is posted and attribute things that are not stated. Do you fall in that category?

[victim soul]

Absolutely!!

Montgomery seems to becoming the Home of Civil Rights.

Our Civil Rights are dependent on what our Founding Fathers knew and pledged their lives and fortune to protect and demand - and what are current nation's fathers have forgotten, refuse to defend some openly disparage. (The current state of the Senate Judiciary Committee comes to mind)

Our Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that our rights are inalienable because they come from our Creator. They do not come from a king or a legislator.

Judge Roy Moore is defending our Founder's Declaration, our First Amendment rights to practice and live our Faith and his state's constitution and his state's rights guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

MOORE: Because as chief justice of Alabama, I'm sworn to uphold the Alabama Constitution. I'm the chief administrative officer of the justice system. And our justice system is established invoking the favor and guidance of almighty God.

It says, 'we the people of the state of Alabama, in order to establish justice, invoking the favor and guidance of almighty God.' When the federal judge says I cannot acknowledge God, I can't do my job.

COLMES: So you say acknowledging God is part of your job.

MOORE: Absolutely.

MOORE: Well, I think the net effect of capitulation on an issue like this is to allow the federal courts to continue to come into the state and take away the states' rights. You see, it's right of the state to establish justice. It's the Tenth Amendment (search). The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states.

MOORE: Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But this is a matter of constitutional law, it's the matter of the First Amendment, it's a matter of the Tenth Amendment, and people need to know what this issue is. It's about the acknowledgment of God. Can we do that?

Friday, August 08, 2003

This is a partial transcript from Hannity & Colmes, August, 7 2003 that has been edited for clarity. Click here to order a transcript of the entire show.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,94216,00.html

If you cannot attend rally for Judge Moore C-Span will be covering it.

Let's Sign petition to support Judge Moore

http://www.grassfire.net/18/petition.asp

Rallies in support of Moore's position are planned for Saturday, Aug. 16, and Wednesday, Aug. 20 - Thompson's deadline.

"This is going to be a rallying point against all of those who have been trying in every way they can to drive [out] all expression of faith and...establish in essence a religion of atheism in our society," former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes told CNSNews.com this week. Keyes plans to attend Saturday's rally in Montgomery.

"I think the battle lines are drawn, and what's clear is that...we have got to fight back. For too long, the people of this country have been willing to allow this destruction of their basic right to religious freedom. For decades, we have allowed its erosion and the open assault against it, and it's got to be stopped now, or we will have to answer to future generations for allowing one of the most seminal and fundamental rights of liberty to be destroyed, and if it goes, quickly thereafter fall all the rest."

[CONSERVE]

Who is getting it, and for what?

As for who I wouldn't know, for what to protect your constitutional rights. Before they are all completely eroded.
It is about time someone drew a line in the sand and put a stop to all the P.C. bull.

[lugsoul]

They are doing a poor job of it, when just about every position taken in the case ensured that they would lose. And no case on this scale costs $125,000,000. A lot of people are lining their pockets with the Judge's fight.

As far as my rights go, I agree with the eloquent statement of Justice Robert Jackson (you remember him, don't you - the prosecutor at the Nuremburg Trials?)in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943):

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that

no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."

I don't know if Judge Moore is high, but he's certainly petty.

[moneyrunner]

Having read Judge Myron Thompson’s opinion – all 83 pages of it – allow me to summarize for those who don’t have the time or inclination.

Thompson begins his opinion with the following: ” The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, made binding upon the States through the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that government "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."”

My comment is that this quotation from the first amendment is similar to the famous use of ellipses by Maureen Dowd. The rest of the clause having to do with religion says that we are not supposed to be prevented from freely exercising our religion. This, the courts in numerous decisions, have constrained in an increasing number of ways. In Judge Moore’s case, he is acknowledging his religion very publicly – one could say exercising his religious freedom, by posting a monument containing, among other things, quotations from the Ten Commandments.

The issue of “standing” is raised. Judge Thomas – on PP 15-16 cites case law; ”… the plaintiffs must suffer personal injury "as a consequence of the alleged constitutional error, other than the psychological consequence presumably produced by observation of conduct with which one disagrees." … The personal injury may be noneconomic in nature…. An "effect on an individual's use and enjoyment of public land is a sufficient noneconomic injury to confer standing to challenge governmental actions."

One must be a lawyer to understand the fine legal distinction between disallowing psychological consequences for standing and allowing standing based on an individual’s use and enjoyment of public land – a totally psychological reaction in the case of the plaintiffs. Never the less, Judge Thompson found that the plaintiffs have standing.

Judge Thompson next goes on to give us a great deal of background on Judge Moore, his beliefs and his association, such as it is, with Coral Ridge Ministries of which Dr. James Kennedy is pastor.

Judge Thompson then gives us a guided tour of the rotunda of the Alabama State Judicial Building, noting the prominence of the monument, the fact that people walking into the building can’t help but see it, the fact that 14 other quotations inscribed on the monument are not as prominent, that the 10 Commandments look like an open Bible, that two other plaques in the rotunda are not as easily spotted, and that Judge Moore made a speech at the unveiling noting that “the monument depicted the moral foundation of law.”

As if that were no scandalous enough, Judge Thompson – addressing himself in the third person as “the court” found himself in the judicially impermissible position of feeling that the ” monument and its immediate surroundings are, in essence, a consecrated place, a religious sanctuary, within the walls of a courthouse.”

Much is made in this opinion about Judge Moore’s belief in the supremacy of God, not just when the deity is walled away in the sanctuary of a church, but also in our daily lives. In this Judge Thompson has much in common with Charles Schumer who believes that people who take their Christianity seriously must not be permitted to ascend to the bench, since their beliefs disqualify them from rendering impartial judgment in accordance with the law and the constitution.

Since Judge Moore’s beliefs are very much at issue here, and since Judge Moore has made no effort to hide his beliefs, it becomes clear that the motivations of Judge Moore are the underlying issue. If an act by a Christian is ruled illegal, when the same act by an atheist is ruled legal, we have – in an effort to remove Christian symbols form public property – instituted a very definite religious test for public office.

It should be noted that despite the length of the discussion of Judge Moore’s religious beliefs in the decision, there is no claim in it that Judge Moore’s judicial rulings were unconstitutional or even that they were shaped by his religious beliefs.

The bottom line regarding this decision, is that Judge Thompson has – in what appears to be an example of popular judicial religious intolerance - made a major issue of Judge Moore’s religion and his public profession of it. In all of Judge Thompson’s citations of Judge Moore’s statements, Judge Moore seems to be perfectly congruent with mainstream (albeit not Main Line) Christian theology.

It appears that Judge Moore’s display fails the Lemon test. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, that test says it’s OK to have a symbol of the Christian religion on public property if it is sufficiently surrounded with non-Christian symbols so as to neuter its religious message.

What’s interesting is that Judge Moore is the first major public figure to take on the Christian bashers unapologetically. It’s refreshing.

[f.Christian]

What would be your ideal job in the new soviet american republic ... intelligence officer --- inspector ?

Party morale public loyalty examiner ?

[lugsoul]

How has the State of Alabama survived all these years without the Rock? It is a wonder it still exists. Good thing Roy is here to save it.

[Labyrinthos]

If anyone has information that the numbers are false and Moore was just lying to pump up his attack on Judge Thompson...

Judge Moore could not have been lying because Moore is a God-fearing, bible thunping, evangelical Christian, who follows every one of the Ten Commandments both in letter and in spirit.