In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, Dr. David Lowenthal, emeritus professor of political Science at Boston College, said the Founding Fathers would be appalled at the federal court order for the removal of the Ten Commandments monument.
"I would not want to go to jail," he said, "but if I had to, I wouldn’t give up on the principle" that Justice Moore is defending "that cuts across all lines that [concern] first of all, states’ rights, and ... the proper interpretation of the First Amendment."
To compare Moore’s refusal to bow to the atheist/left-wing/ACLU axis with George Wallace’s standing in the schoolhouse door to preserve segregation in 1962 is ludicrous, declares Lowenthal, author of the new book "Present Dangers: Rediscovering the First Amendment."
Furthermore, this "present danger," as he calls it, predates the uproar that began 40 yeas ago when the courts started chasing religion out of classrooms. For 70 years, he argues, the courts have willfully misinterpreted the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in an attempt to banish religion from public life. Such court decisions betray "a gross misunderstanding" of the Constitution, Lowenthal says. No 'Separation' Is Mandated
Contrary to federal court decisions, Lowenthal says, the First Amendment to the Constitution does not require "a perfect separation of church and state, that there be no vestige of religion in the state or in public life or in government." Furthermore, "even the [U.S.] Supreme Court has edged away from that view in recent decades."
Note that the phrase "separation of church and state" parroted by anti-religious extremists appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution, a fact that many Americans miseducated by government schools do not know.
It is not only the First Amendment that is distorted beyond its meaning by the courts, but the Fourteenth Amendment as well. And that raises the question in this scholar’s mind as to whether the Supreme Court of the United States has jurisdiction over the Alabama Supreme Court in matters of this kind. Lowenthal agrees with Moore that it does not.
Ratified after the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment says that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or due process of law, the noted authority notes.
"The word ‘liberty’ there has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to include" a meaning far beyond what was intended.
"You see, originally that was intended to simply make sure that blacks and whites were treated equally under the law, particularly in the Southern states after the Civil War," Lowenthal explained to NewsMax. "It was not meant for the Supreme Court to be the judge of what constitutes human liberty. That was left to the states just so long as they treated people equally." Thus, the court "has enormously expanded its authority over the states."
As for the decision by Moore’s colleagues on the Alabama Supreme Court to oppose him: "It seems to me that any state worth its salt would not submit to this kind of thing."
Lowenthal said: "Obviously Justice Roy Moore believes that it’s wrong. Otherwise he wouldn’t be doing this. He would bow down to the federal judiciary. But he doesn’t think that he has to. I don’t think so either."