Posted on 12/17/2002 7:18:30 AM PST by Jen
(CNSNews.com) - Veterans and atheists are converging on Montgomery, Ala. Monday, hoping to rally their respective supporters over the display of the Ten Commandments at the state courthouse.
The group American Veterans In Domestic Defense (AVIDD) and the Alabama chapter of the American Atheists are planning competing rallies in support of and opposition to Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's appeal of a federal court ruling that ordered Moore to remove the monument within 30 days.
A week before the Dec. 18 deadline, Moore filed his appeal, noting in a statement that federal courts cannot "prohibit the acknowledgment of God that is specifically recognized in the Constitution of Alabama."
James R. Cabaniss, an Army veteran and president of AVIDD, said the group was initially expecting only a few hundred veterans at the rally, but said that number could reach into the thousands.
"We're going to stand up for the Constitution, the Ten Commandments and Judge Moore," Cabaniss said.
The Houston-based organization was started two years ago and Cabaniss said it has a membership of several hundred in 22 states.
Retired Marine Corps Gen. Raymond G. Davis, the group's commander, will headline the list of speakers at the rally.
Cabaniss called Davis "the most decorated American veteran alive today," and said now is an appropriate time for the veterans' group to come forward in support of Moore. Religious groups and conservatives have held their own demonstrations in the past.
"One of our goals is to search out and identify the many domestic enemies and then put together a strategy for neutralizing their negative impact on society," Cabaniss said. "Our judicial system is running roughshod over the American people and is aiding and abetting the enemy and destroying our Christian heritage."
Cabaniss's perspective struck Larry Darby, the state's director of American Atheists and organizer of the counter-rally, as "scary." He added that people who hold differing views should not be described as enemies.
"This country is big enough and our government should be smart enough to allow all sorts of religious views and non-religious views. These people don't want it that way," Darby said. "We don't have a Christian heritage in our government."
Darby said the atheists would most likely be unable to match the number of veterans who are planning to converge on Montgomery. Even if there are only 15 atheists, though, Darby said they would be ready to send the veterans a message.
Cabaniss dismissed such a suggestion.
"I'd be surprised if those people would try to interfere with what the American veterans are trying to represent," he said. "We're the ones who gave them the right to do that and we would welcome them to be there, but they have to understand that we're the ones who fought to give them that right."
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