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He didnt "restrict" anything, another Judge could do his thing, another office or court could do theirs.

There is only one Alabama Supreme Court, as far as I know, though. How about if the next president decides to erect a giant crescent moon, the traditional symbol of Islam, on the White House lawn - that would be okay with you? After all, "another office or court" could just put up something else in some other building, right?

Judge Moore's display does not involve any official edict, any establishment, any favoritism towards a particular sectarian group, nor any coercion or intimidation.

It does the minute he makes the platform exclusive to one point of view, which is exactly - exactly - what he did here. Why can't the damn atheists put their damn atom in the rotunda too? What on earth is Roy Moore so very terrified of, that he can't put his beliefs to the Pepsi Challenge without stacking the deck in his favor, without putting his thumb on the scale? Is the Judeo-Christian tradition so weak that, faced with a sculpture of an atom, thousands of formerly devout Christians will drop their Bibles and begin hypnotically gravitating towards it?

Please tell me it's not so, that the faith is not that thin and filmy. I don't believe it. Roy Moore apparently does, but I don't. Not for a minute. Putting an atom in the rotunda is not going to make me an atheist, and anyone who is converted by that sort of thing was never serious about their prior faith to begin with, IMO.

"How about if the next president decides to erect a giant crescent moon, the traditional symbol of Islam, on the White House lawn - that would be okay with you?"

Whether it is "okay" with me or not, such an act is CERTAINLY CONSTITUTIONAL! If you dont like how certain public official use their freedom of expression, you can vote them out. I for one would have no problem with, say a President Joe Leiberman, putting out Hannukah lights instead of a White House Christmas tree. No problem.

What I do have a problem with is the fascistic idea that all public expressions of religious sentiment are out of bounds simply because they (by necessity) fail to be all-inclusive. *Any* expression fails to be all-inclusive, so this is a recipe for supressing *any* religious sentiment in public. That is repressive, anti-freedom and and anti-religious bigotry.

"What on earth is Roy Moore so very terrified of, that he can't put his beliefs to the Pepsi Challenge without stacking the deck in his favor, without putting his thumb on the scale?Please tell me it's not so, that the faith is not that thin and filmy. I don't believe it. "

You can turn that around. Do you really think this mere stone slab is going to somehow forcible convert the state of Alabama into Judge Moore's 'true' religion? You think it has such amazing powers that it becomes an 'establishment' of it? You really think to build up one thing (Moses) somehow degrades anything not related to Judeo-Christian heritage. What a fragile and easily offended ego it would take to belive that!

No of course not. It's just an innocuous display. It really doesnt matter one way or the other to the beliefs of anyone and, and will not change minds. Of course this is not about what people believe deep down, it's just a public expression, a testimonial of what people (some people) *already* believe and respect.

If anything, it's the nutty ACLU who falsely make this stone monument to be more than it really is.

" Why can't the damn atheists put their damn atom in the rotunda too? "

They *can*, if the officials managing it let them. You find a sponsor for it, go ahead. It's fine. IN fact you find such stuff in some world's fairs. ... But dont go around pretending like the bogus ACLU-types here that there is a Constitutional aborgation simply because there wasnt 'equal time' or "equal space" here. You have to hang on to the worst of Judicial activist bogus logic to reach that point (hey it didnt stop the Carter appointed Judge Myron, but that doesnt make him right).