Posted on 01/19/2004 11:26:29 AM PST by TaxRelief
01/19/2004 Associated Press A city council member placed a granite block bearing the Ten Commandments on a walkway in front of a city hall deserted on Monday's Martin Luther King holiday.
Vernon Robinson, a black conservative who has been on the city council since 1998, said he and four helpers acted on the holiday because the barren adjoining parking lot allowed him to move in a truck and crane to position the one-ton block.
The monument — inscribed on one side with the Ten Commandments and on the other side with the Bill of Rights — was positioned on a landing of the stairway ascending to the 1930s city hall at dawn Monday, Robinson said.
Robinson said he had no permit or other authorization to place the monument on public property.
The $2,000 cost of buying and moving the four- tall, blue-granite block was entirely his own, said Robinson, who is running for a vacant U.S. House seat.
Mayor Allen Joines did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the city's response.
"This display is intended to acknowledge the undeniable role that the Ten Commandments and Bill of Rights have played in developing the American legal tradition," Robinson said in a telephone interview.
"These are the ideas on which society has been built and these works encapsulate the belief system on which the republic was founded."
Robinson said he was inspired to act by former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who ordered a 2 1/2-ton Ten Commandments monument placed in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building in 2001.
A federal judge found the monument to be an unconstitutional promotion of religion by government in 2002. Moore was removed from office last year for violating ethics rules by not obeying the federal court order to remove the monument.
Robinson said the monument was quarried and cut in Georgia and shipped from there.
Yea, well, that is only if you are stupid enough to pay a lawyer to defend the suit. The judge is more than capable enough to make up his mind without the city having to spend gobs of cash on a lawyer to argue the merits.
When it is time to present your case, enter a few well known documents as evidence (including current U.S. currency, pictures of the Supreme Court chambers, etc.), rest your case and wait for a decision that likely has been made before the judge ever heard one word of the trial (which way it goes depends on the judge).
The only way to win the game is not to play it. Let the other side spend all they want. Get caught up in the lawyer and spending game and you lose from day one.
Just curious why his principles didn't lead him to do this years ago then? He's been in politics quite a while, it's obviously a plan to get media coverage and increase his name recognition for his congressional run.
I've read a lot about Vernon and I like everything I hear. He!!, I wish I could vote for him. I'm just a bit concerned that people may simply see this as grandstanding and it could backfire on him.
MKM
I think you may be right.
This story is scrolling across the bottom of FOX News!
Between the Panthers and Vernon, the limelight is being taken off Iowa. That's good.
Robinson sure looks like presidential material to me. Watta guy.
Okay, fine. How would you rate Mayor Lee Myers as a future candidate?
State Senator Virginia Foxx and Mr. Robinson are the only two I have much familiarity with, and of the two, I'd prefer Ms. Foxx. I've seen accusations of RINOism, but based on her voting record and her declared positions, I don't find them credible.
Foxx is, in my view, a politician. Okay, stating the obvious, but a politician in every sense of the word. She'll vote fairly conservatively enough to satisfy the base, she'll talk the talk -- but "the talk" changes depending on who she's talking to. And when the going gets tough, the Foxx will make whatever deal she feels she can spin to the folks back home.
She's been endorsed by NC Right to Life in her state senate races, but my understanding is this House race is the first time she's had ONE stance on abortion (she's now 100% pro-life, I believe). She was pro-gay until this race as well. What are her real views? How will she vote? No one knows, except that she'll likely bring in pork and go with the Party.
In my opinion, Nathan Tabor (evangelical-type Soy Boy) and Vernon will vote conservatively as a spasmatic reaction.
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Aw geez, another "I'm just gonna post on 5th district threads and trash candidates" punk.
You know, rw, one day you're going to learn that you ALWAYS come late to threads and that you ALWAYS posts remarks that just prove to everybody on the thread that you, once again, don't know what you're talking about.
I defy you to CUT AND PASTE where I said anything like that.
I'll wait.
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