Alabama SC justices cave, order Ten Commandments removed

AP on Fox News ^ | 8-21-03 | AP on Fox News website

[rwfromkansas]

MONTGOMERY, Ala.

[xrp]

Israel has the right to make Judiasm the law of there land do we not have the same right? Only if you want to burn the US Constitution.

[Aquamarine]

Rode down to Montgomery yesterday evening and arrived just after the arrest were made inside the Courthouse. Some people there told me that they closed the Courthouse at 4 instead of the usual time at 5. The people inside asked to stay then were arrested when they didn't leave.
Took some pictures with a new digital camera but I don't know how to upload the pictures that I took...actually printed this one out then scanned it in order to upload it (can anyone help me out here?). This was taken at 5:30 of the monument through the glass doors which were locked. I believe the people in the wheelchairs around it are disabled protesters that were left behind.

[missyme]

So I guess there is a possibiity that we can elect a Politician that does worship a COW.

Our Country is becoming pretty SORRY!

[inquest]

He has a legal "mandate" to decorate the courthouse? So he's violating the law if he leaves it undecorated?

[libravoter]

Tresspassing case involving 2 religious groups - doesn't count.

It may not count in changing your opinion of them.

However I did not reply to any of your posts to change your opinion. I replied to beachn4fun - who wanted to see more than one case where the ACLU actually defended the rights of the conservative Christian.

Beachn4fun did not request a case where the ACLU defended a conservative Christian and nobody else could be affected. Therefore one of the cases I posted was exclusively defending conservative Christians and one case they defended a conservative Christian and one other religious person.

[talleyman]

Are we talking about the case where the judge banned them from using a park(?) because they were a religious group?

[lugsoul]

The state is promoting paganism?

Just dayum. Who woulda thunk that Riley, Pryor, Moore and all were out there using state power and money to help the Wiccans.

[AmishDude]

The ACLU spearheaded the attack to delay the CA recall, just to choose a recent example.

[concerned about politics]

Are you surprised, after all, they are all lawyers.

After cases like this one, I expect to see bat wings pop out of their backs, and see them fly off into the darkness heading twards more innocent victims.

[libravoter]

o I guess there is a possibiity that we can elect a Politician that does worship a COW.

Our Country is becoming pretty SORRY!

Actually, I think it's wonderful that it is possible for us to elect a cow-worshiper. I just think it's more wonderful that Americans wouldn't.

[rwfromkansas]

"The real object of the [First] amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government." --- early Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Joseph Story

[ppaul]

Moore is not your typical judge. After graduating from West Point he served for five years in Vietnam before entering law school at the University of Alabama. Prior to his first judicial appointment in 1992, he studied full-contact karate, won his first kick boxing match, and completed a five-month trek across the Australian outback.

Though he has traveled widely, Moore has never strayed from his roots in Etowah County, Alabama. Growing up in what he called a “poor Christian home” and admiring a father who “lived what he believed,” Moore learned to honor God, cherish family, and love his country. Following law school, he served as deputy district attorney in Etowah County and later established his own private practice. In 1992, he was appointed Circuit Judge of the 16th Judicial Circuit, where he gained notoriety for displaying a plaque of the Ten Commandments. Then in 2000, Moore was elected to serve as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. A devout Christian and father of four children, Moore is not surprised by the controversy that has surrounded his public service. “When you do what you believe, you are going to run into problems,” he says.

Recently, PBS commentator Bill Moyers commented on Christian conservatives like Moore. “[F]or the first time in the memory of anyone alive,” he writes in a commentary posted on PBS’ website, “the entire federal government—the Congress, the Executive, the Judiciary—is united behind a right-wing agenda for which George W. Bush believes he now has a mandate.” The root cause of Moyers’ concern appears to be Christians who take their role in politics seriously: “And if you like God in government,” he added, “get ready for the Rapture. These folks don’t even mind you referring to the GOP as the party of God. Why else would the new House Majority Leader [Tom DeLay] say that the Almighty is using him to promote ‘a Biblical worldview’ in American politics?”

What Moyers and others liberals are so bothered about is not Christianity, but true Christianity, biblical Christianity, activist Christianity. Moore’s opponents—three Alabama attorneys represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State—see references to God on a monument as a threat to the establishment of the official state religion, atheism. Morris Dees, the co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, even went so far as to call Moore “a religious nut.” After all, Moore is a man who, wearing his judge’s robes, can often be found citing one of his trademark poems: “Choosing godless judges, we’ve thrown reason out the door/Too soft to put a killer in a well-deserved tomb, but brave enough to kill that child before it leaves the womb/ . . . you think that God’s not angry that this land is a moral slum?”

One of Moore’s attorneys, Herbert Titus, the former dean of the law school at Regent University, said Moore’s judicial philosophy is really quite simple. Moore believes that there is a “moral foundation of law with the acknowledgment that God is the source of that foundation.”

Moore could not be more right. The sad truth is that most Americans, brainwashed by the government school system, don’t even know that the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution had no concept of the so-called “separation of church and state” that is so prevalent in today’s court system. As William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, has stated, “The separation of church and state is a metaphor based on bad history and worse law. It has made a positive chaos out of judgments, and it should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.”

When the First Amendment was being debated, the phrase “separation of church and state” was never used by the 90 men who framed it. “The First Amendment restricts only Congress,” says Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries and founder of the Center for Reclaiming America. “It was created to restrain the federal government.” Many Founding Fathers, including Patrick Henry and George Washington, refused to sign the Constitution unless it had a set of protections for the people against a potentially all-powerful federal government.

“Once we let the government believe it is the source of our liberties, we are never safe,” says Dr. Kennedy. The Declaration of Independence states the purpose of government very clearly—to secure God-given “unalienable rights.” That is the primary justification Thomas Jefferson gave for having government. Thus, apart from a recognition of God-given rights, there is no legitimate foundation for government. Indeed, government cannot be secular, because government’s purpose is to secure rights—and blessings—that come from God. And if government cannot be secular, why should we expect our elected officials to be secular?
Dr. Kennedy’s description of the true Christian statesman bears repeating here.

· First and foremost, a Christian statesman is one who repents of his sins, believes the gospel, trusts in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and invites God by His Spirit to dwell in his heart.

· Secondly, a true Christian statesman seeks to live a life guided by God’s Word and desires to make his days count for the kingdom of God.

· Finally, a true Christian statesman is one whose public and private conduct is guided by a bedrock set of principles that will not be compromised for personal or political gain. Such a person rises above partisan politics and makes the overall welfare of a nation his first priority.

In short, says Dr. Kennedy, a Christian statesman is someone whose commitment to Christ and love of country compel him to stand for truth and righteousness in government. Such a person recognizes that individuals (as well as nations) will ultimately give an account to God and are dependent on Him for prosperity and success.

Need a good picture of a Christian statesman? Then take a look at Roy Moore.

And to Justice Moore I say, “Keep on fighting the good fight.” You are not alone. As another fearless defender of the Constitution once said: “In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength” (Robert E. Lee).

by David Alan Black

http://www.southerncaucus.org/213.htm

[libravoter]

I also think it's wonderful you gave me the opportunity to use "cow worshiper" in a sentence.

A great big cheer for Freepers everywhere!

[lugsoul]

"So I guess there is a possibiity that we can elect a Politician that does worship a COW. Our Country is becoming pretty SORRY!"

Yep. I can't believe those damn Founders got us into that mess.

No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Article VI, United States Constitution.

By the way, you need to brush up on your Hinduism. They don't exactly worship cows. Ask pram - he pretends to be a Hindu.

[general_re]

It is a discretionary act permitted by law - still doesn't save your case, though. He is authorized by the law to decorate the courthouse, if he wishes. A police officer is authorized by the law to seek a warrant to search your house, but the fact that he declines to seek a warrant in a particular case does not mean that he is failing to administer the law. Contrariwise, by your logic it would seem to follow that if a police officer does seek a warrant, he is not administering the law when he does so....

[singsong]

Nitpicking on ACLU part. There are no high profile cases at all. It is an important part of PR to maintain the image of neutrality. ACLU's political agenda though is invisible only to the fools.

[talleyman]

Excellent.

[lugsoul]

Funny, how you don't criticize Story for explicity ignoring the words of the Founders.

[missyme]

I have to say that in my neighborhood if I saw a person worshiping or sacraficing an animal for there practicing faith I would highly be offended and do whatever I took in a civilized manner to make them stop.

Why do people who want to practice there faith in our country that is not of the Judeo-Christian principles have
more of a right than we do?

If you go to an Islamic country as a woman you have to respect there custom and where a scarf over your face.

We deserve no respect in the good ol'USA?

[BamaG]

As another fearless defender of the Constitution once said: “In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength” (Robert E. Lee). Yeah, Old RE Lee was a huge defender of the constitution...so much that he fought to dissolve the union.