Posted on 08/21/2003 3:47:11 PM PDT by dennisw
Rabbi tells Moore Jews support display
08/18/03
STAN BAILEY News staff writer
MONTGOMERY - Thousands of American Jews support Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's display of the Ten Commandments in the state judicial building rotunda, an Orthodox rabbi from New York told him Friday.
Rabbi Yehuda Levin, saying he represents 1,000 rabbis and 750,000 Orthodox Jews in two national organizations, gave Moore an embroidered likeness of the Ten Commandments and blessed him in a special prayer.
"May the Author of the Decalogue give you the strength and the fortitude to be successful in your righteous struggle and be an effective leader in the public arena for years to come," Levin told Moore in a brief ceremony on the judicial building steps.
Levin said that because it is the Jewish Sabbath, he won't be able to speak at today's rally at the judicial building, which will feature the Rev. Jerry Falwell and other speakers and demonstrators from across Alabama and several other states.
Levin said he will sit on the speakers' platform, however, "to be seen by tens of thousands of good Christians that they should know that there are hundreds of thousands of Jews just like me" who support Moore.
Levin said he represents the Rabbinical Alliance of America and the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada.
Levin said he was embarrassed Thursday that Stephen Glassroth, one of the lawyers who sued to have the Ten Commandments monument removed from the judicial building and who filed an ethics complaint against Moore on Thursday, is Jewish. "This to many people throughout America represents Judaism. God forbid. That's why I'm here," Levin said.
"It's imperative that we of the Orthodox Jewish community, express the gratitude of three quarters of a million Orthodox Jews who appreciate the courage and unwavering conviction of Chief Justice Roy Moore."
Lawyers for Moore asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to set aside U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson's order to remove the monument pending an appeal of earlier rulings by Thompson and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the monument is unconstitutional.
Moore's lawyers told the high court that he will file a request no later than Sept. 29 to review the lower court rulings in the case.
Glassroth's complaint Thursday with the Judicial Inquiry Commission, which could result in Moore's suspension, and statements by Attorney General Bill Pryor and Justice Gorman Houston, senior associate justice, that they will see that Thompson's order is obeyed, haven't affected planned demonstrations today and next week, sponsors said.
"We are still going forward with all our events," said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Washington-based Christian Defense Coalition, which has called for civil disobedience to block removal of the monument.
Mahoney said his group will hold a candlelight vigil outside the state judicial building at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, which is Thompson's deadline for removing the monument or risk possibly hefty fines against the state.
Sure, it's pretty simple. Both are fanatical wackos who are out to impose theocracy. And the Constitution must be defended from both.
Welcome, Sed, to the Free Republic!
I hope you find what you're looking for here.
Judging from your posts in the forums, you have some points to make, notably on the issue of church and state.
While I encourage you to keep an open mind, I certainly don't wish to discourage you from speaking it.
I share your concerns about theocracy, but the "Alabama Supreme Court Ten Commandments Case" is really a matter of federal versus state jurisdiction.
Thus while I do not support promotion of any religion at public expense, I object far more to the abuse and overextension of federal judicial powers into the realm of the extralegal.
There is no sound basis in federal law or the U.S. Constitution for a judge to order the removal of the monument from the Alabama supreme courthouse. It is judicial fiat, pure and simple, and therefore illegal.
Placement of the monument was also judicial fiat, but, unlike the federal order, is not in violation of law.
The most dangerous implementation of theocracy in this case is that of the Church of Judicial Legislation, which is based on the belief that federal judges may issue rulings without a basis in law. Even the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court numbers among its members.
It is a false church and a dangerous cult, and needs to be debunked, and its members removed from the arbitrarily-elevated positions of power from which they issue their baseless decrees.
Congress has the power of impeachment of federal judges who abuse their authority. I suggest they start using it.
Hey! How's it going? I've been lurking since the days of Impeachment, but finally got around to registering.
Thus while I do not support promotion of any religion at public expense, I object far more to the abuse and overextension of federal judicial powers into the realm of the extralegal.
I think you're absolutely right. Fortunately, the district court's injunction against Judge Moore abusing his office and establishing a religious observance was firmly based in the United States Constitution and a hundred years of constitutional jurisprudence. The federal courts have the power to uphold the federal civil rights of Alabamans, specifically, the right not to have the Book of Exodus imposed upon them.
It's certainly very dangerous for Judge Moore to invent the power to declare that the Book of Exodus is valid law in Alabama, and I'm glad to see the feds stepping in to overrule Moore's judicial fiat - and that his colleagues were willing to restrain his overreach.
He didn't do that. In what way did he compel anyone to observe his religion?
It's certainly very dangerous for Judge Moore to invent the power to declare that the Book of Exodus is valid law in Alabama, ...
He didn't do that either. He put up a monument. That's not a declaration of law. He may have publicly declared that God's law is supreme as his own observance of religion but that doesn't codify it into state law and he never suggested that it did.
"Thou shalt not steal."
"Honor thy father and thy mother."
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife."
"Thou shalt not commit adultery."
Funny. I don't hear a lot about God in these commandments.
Maybe it's the last one in that list that sticks in the craw of a liberal like you thinking back to the Clinton days. Nobody can twist words or events like a liberal.
Nobody ever said anything about establishing a religious observance, except for you.
If you are referring to the use of the Fourteenth Amendment to grant federal jurisdiction over all levels of government, you may wish to reconsider your position, because it most certainly will be reconsidered by future courts.
Abuse of power is not synonymous with the rule of law. The issue is not moot, and is being tested in a variety of ways. Federal domination over all spheres of government is clearly not intended nor supported by the constitution as a matter of intrinsic fact.
The misinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment as nullifying the reservation of state powers is incorrect, illegal on its face, and will eventually be corrected. The courts have been wrong before, and, so far, are mostly wrong on this, although that may be changing.
The problem is that once the courts grant themselves powers, it often literally takes an act of congress to recover it.
Er... right. And if you drastically edit the New Testament, it's just a brief description of a wedding and fishing trip. What point are you trying to make by only citing four of the Ten Commandments?
Maybe it's the last one in that list that sticks in the craw of a liberal like you thinking back to the Clinton days. Nobody can twist words or events like a liberal.
Um... meanwhile, on another planet, Fourteenth Amendment supporters are adulterers. Ah, the marvellous panoply of pseudo-conservatives... selectively deleting parts of the Ten Commandments, selectively deleting parts of the Constitution...
As people in Reconstruction days well knew, the states cannot be trusted not to violate the fundamental civil rights of their citizens. It was sadly demonstrated in the 1860s, and it was sadly demonstrated in the 1960s. Consequently, the Fourteenth Amendment extends the protection of the Bill of Rights to citizens of the States, and authorizes the federal government to take action to intervene if states have acted unconstitutionally.
Abuses of the Fourteenth Amendment predate Everson v. Board of Education (1947), but that case defines the moment when the doctrine of "separation of church and state", which has no basis in law aside from proscriptions affecting federal government (including federal judges, by the way), was used to support an unconstitutional opinion, and has served as the basis for a spectacular train of abuses by federal judges since, from prayer bans to intervention at all levels of government.
This includes recent outrageous decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court which effectively seek to nullify the Tenth Amendment and the constitutionally mandated reservation of powers not specifically granted by the Constitution to the federal government to the states, or to the people.
It is impossible to reconcile interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment as extending federal powers to each and every aspect of state and local government with the intrinsic principles of the U.S. Constitution. These opinions disregard the body of the Constitution itself, and as such, are illegal and nonbinding. It is fallacy to claim authority from a document one seeks to render moot in its totality.
Just because a criminal gets away with a crime does not mean what he did was legal. So it is with federal judges and their abuse of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The time of reckoning is coming, and only then will the true rule of law be restored.
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