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