Posted on 04/15/2005 4:56:59 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Chief Justice Roy Moore’s new book So Help Me God is a captivating and unflinching first-hand account of a man on the front lines of the battle between religious freedom and judicial tyranny. This Alabama Supreme Court Justice embodies the true definition of patriotism, inasmuch he has risked his career and reputation to stand by his oath of office and refuses to deny his allegiance to the Constitution and the laws of nature and nature’s God for the mere sake of catering to the frenetic, deep-seated anti-religious paranoia of the uber-secular left.
It was on June 9, 1993 that ACLU member Joel Sogol wrote to then-chief justice of Alabama Sonny Hornsby, threatening to sue anyone who continued the time-honored tradition of praying in court. After Roy Moore took office in 1994 and refused to bring a halt to the tradition, the ACLU stepped up their threats of suit over the prayer and, in addition, began hyperventilating over the Ten Commandments plaque Justice Moore had placed in his courtroom. At the beginning of the third month of Justice Moore’s first term of office on March 31, 1995, the ACLU filed suit in U.S. district court against him on the basis that he had illegally imposed his religious beliefs on others in the courtroom, denouncing the prayer as “a religious test.”
The ACLU apparently didn’t feel up to suing all 550 members of Congress and all nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court who have always begun their daily proceedings with prayers. It may even be a sobering revelation to them that our very first president noted in his inaugural address, “no people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States.” Nevertheless, it is doubtful that such words would bear much significance to a pathetic, subversive gang of rogue lawyers who have nothing better to do with their time than to bully public officials out of acknowledging their creator and to throw childish temper tantrums over harmless little plaques.
In a priceless act of civil disobedience, Justice Moore erected a 2½-ton granite Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of the State Judicial Building. Moore would later write in his book that “[t]he display of God’s law was not done to make any bold statement, to intimidate or offend anyone, or to push any particular religion. It was simply a reminder that this country was established on a particular God and His divine, revealed laws; it reflected the Christian faith of our founders.”
Flabbergasted, on Halloween 2001, the ACLU ganged up with Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Southern Poverty Law Center to file suit over the monument. Demonstrating what loving people liberals can be, in a letter to the legal director of Americans United, Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center referred to Justice Moore as a “religious nut in partnership with a fanatical church.” (And showing how smart liberals can be, the letter was accidentally sent to Justice Moore’s attorney, Steve Melchior. Whoops!)
The case was set for trial on October 15, 2002. Less than a month after it ended, on November 18, 2002, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled against the Ten Commandments display, declaring it unconstitutional. In his ruling, Judge Myron stated: “[W]hile the Chief Justice is free to keep whatever religious beliefs he chooses, the state may not acknowledge the sovereignty of the Judeo-Christian God and attribute to that God our religious freedom.” Perhaps Judge Myron would be compelled to rethink his words if he actually bothered to read the Alabama State Constitution which Moore had sworn specifically to uphold, inasmuch as it reads in the preamble: “We, the people of the State of Alabama, in order to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution and form of government for the State of Alabama” (emphasis added).
On March 2, 2005, the New York Times expressed its disapproval of similar displays in between the Capitol and the State Supreme Court in Texas, and in county courthouses in Kentucky, accusing the displays’ backers of not accepting the “separation of church and state” while explaining that “[t]he Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits Congress from making laws respecting an establishment of a religion.” If nothing else, at least these circumstances have given liberals yet another excuse to evince their maniacal infatuation with the “separation of church and state,” a phrase which we are supposed to believe is somewhere in the Constitution.
If a liberal sneezed and you said “God bless you” he would begin spastically whining about the “separation of church and state.” To appreciate this situation from the perspective of the judicial supremacists, the ACLU lawyers and the New York Times editors, we will just have to pretend for a moment that a) the “separation of church and state” exists in the Constitution, b) Congress is somehow responsible for the placement of the Ten Commandments monuments, and c) the monuments in effect represent an establishment of a state religion.
There. Now it sort of makes sense.
To the contrary, however, the left’s beloved “separation of church and state” mantra originated not in the Constitution, but in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 (11 years after the First Amendment was incorporated into the Constitution) regarding their concerns that the Congregationalists may abuse their power to attain a favored position. Explicitly, Jefferson wrote: “[the] wall of separation between church and state…is a one-directional wall. It keeps the government from running the church, but makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government.”
The self-styled progressive elites have typically justified their anti-Christian bigotry by insinuating that religion must stay away from government, and any case in which it does not is an irrevocable step towards theocracy. Their interpretation of the language of the First Amendment demonstrates how little understanding they have of its actual implications.
By including the establishment clause in the Constitution, the framers were preventing the prospects of theocracy such as that which the Pilgrims purportedly fled from in England before settling on the North American shores. However, there is a reason why Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (emphasis added). What Jefferson was taking into account was the imperative necessity of our leaders and authorities to recognize their inferiority to the divine laws of the solar system and their subordinance to a Higher Power, so as not to confuse themselves with that Higher Power and in due course assume a despotic, tyrannical precedence.
The functionality of our democracy is contingent upon the Hobbesian doctrine that man is inherently corrupt and therefore in need of some degree of governmental supervision. The notion of human fallibility is quintessential of the Judeo-Christian doctrines with which our founders specifically harmonized their vision of a free republic. The acknowledgement of that fallible nature is what distinguishes our system from communism – a system which presupposes that man is basically good, and therefore capable of upholding and preserving a utopian, Edinic society. It distinguishes our system as well from that of monarchism and fascism, both of which presuppose that there is such a thing as Divine Right, or human infallibility; that it is possible for a human leader to take on a godlike authority over his people and govern them in a flawless manner. But because our system recognizes that there is no such thing as human infallibility, our branches of power are balanced, and our leaders are appointed through a democratic process by which the majority of citizens decide who gets to represent them, and for how long.
Secularist liberals tend to accuse Christians of seeing things too much in “black and white,” yet they themselves have adopted a black and white perspective by declining to consider the fact that not everything boils down to the two options of theocracy and secularism. A system of government that is religious in nature does not automatically take on the form of theocracy. It does not mean that its subjects must be coerced into submission to a certain designated religious faith. Whether or not we as individuals decide to subject ourselves to personal dependence on religion, we must recognize that our freedom to do so or not do so at our own will is dependent on our democratic system, and our democratic system is dependent on religion.
It is on account of this brand of narcissistic judicial hubris, this denial of subordinance to a Higher Law that an innocent woman was allowed to be inhumanly starved to death recently, that activist judges have been able to recklessly redefine the institution of marriage, and that an unremitting fetal holocaust has been sanctioned by the highest levels of government for 32 years and counting. The more we forget that we are “one nation under God,” the more we will become “one nation under the State.” If this becomes the case, then our rights will become conditional and susceptible to abuse, rather than God-given and immune to meddling. As many could argue, resting our rights solely on the state is like building a house on sand. (Note to liberals: Please pardon the biblical reference.)
So some say. But ours (speaking nationally and for all states) is a representative government, not mob rule. We are a nation of laws and not men. Religious zealots like Moore argue that they are above those limits, and claim to be God's representatives on earth. In doing so, they simply become men rather than agents of the law.
He was seen to have abused power by citizens who successfully carried their case against him through the courts. Because he made false claims about the nature of our laws, I agree that he should have been censured.
You are misinformed. The citizens of Alabama elected Roy Mooore to the Alabama Supreme Court knowing that he was going to put the monument in the State Judicary Building. He stated that fact many times during his campaign. It was the SPLC along with the ACLU who brought the suit against the monument and Roy Moore.
Furthermore, the justices who voted for his removal (yes, it was unamimous)are now trying to coverup that fact. Two of them were defeated in the last election cycle by Roy Moore supporters. It's only a matter of time before the others are voted out of office.
Oh and BTW, Roy Moore out polls the present governor by 8 points.
And atheism is NOT a religion? Atheists are religious zealots of the worst kind, pressing their religion into every facet of our lives. IMHO
Are you denying that Moore gave the interview to a Christian Identify broadcaster, or are you saying that it doesn't matter? Look it up and prove me wrong. My source is the American Jewish Congress: http://www.ajcongress.org/pages/RELS1997/APR97REL/apr_011.htm
What does that prove? He's a Christian, and he says his relationship with Christ inspires him and makes him stronger as a leader. He also has said that he was chosen by God, and that would be Christ. He's not saying that he was chosen by God to impose Christianity on Americans. He's really careful about that. He's gotten even more careful in his second term.
Are you denying that Moore gave the interview to a Christian Identify broadcaster, or are you saying that it doesn't matter?
So what? For all we know, Roy Moore could have been rebuking the Christian Identity broadcaster for being a bigot.
I'd be happy to hear it, but I'd be surprised. He was probably enlisting their support.
Being from Bama...up until the point where the good judge had that giant stone tablet made up...most folks were approving of Judge Moore. But after dragging up this entire stone episode...for reasons that didn't quiet add up...he kinda lost some favor. I think he can still run for governor and win. But alot of folks from Bama see the judge as motivating a particular base of the population for election purposes only. Its hard to say if he really means what he says.
I strongly disagree, in the case of President Bush as well as Moore.
Those who believe in freedom of conscience will oppose attempts by people like you to impose religious tests to weed out those you consider "zealots" from the government.
Moore and Bush are very different people. If Bush is like Moore privately, he hides it very well.
None of those issues, such as commandments on the eves of the Supreme Court or chaplains or anything else like that compare with Moore's public proclamations that we are a Christian nation and that Judaic documents is the very foundation of our law. His words might sound good to some Christians, but when you really analzye them, you'll see that they are pure anti-Enlightenment rhetoric. America was founded on the idea that governments could not interpret religious faith and doctrines, that the individual was supreme in judging matters of faith and conscience for himself. Moore carefully tried to throw all of that away with his argument that we were legally Christian. We are Christian by choice. The minute it changes into something else is the minute we really start to lose American religious freedom.
The religious convictions of the people are important, not the religious dogma reflected in our laws. His comments do not shake my conviction that Moore was a grandstanding theocrat.
Also, how many years, perhaps thousands of years, of human experience were available before the first word of any religion was written or codified?
They are no longer up for discussion, as they've been codified out, mostly through the federalization of an ever increasing list of things. Strict constructionist judges can not toss out bad law in the same was as activist judges, cuz by definition they would become activist as soon as they ignore the mountian of rulings & caselaw that has been built since the writing of the founding documents. At this point, it would take ammendments to constitutions to un-make "rights" that have been discovered somewhere between the lines in the originals.
I'd argue that our current laws are more just and more fair than they were back then.
Justness or justice & fairness are in the eye of the beholder.
You could have an entire class of children with parents who wished for the teacher to promote Christian ideals in their instruction, but if the class is in a public school, that would not be allowed. OTOH, if you had an entire class of children who's parents wished for the teacher to promote athiest or secular humanist ideals in their instruction, if the class is in a public school... Which group of parents will think the current state of the laws is just & fair? If you can not honestly say both, can they be either just or fair?
The Enlightenment didn't intend for laws to be created out of thin air, although Rousseau's social contract, which inspired our founding fathers, implied this to some extent. Rousseau's ideas evolved and were carried forward to become the socialism and anarchism of today, and I don't think that's what any of us wants. What I'm talking about is the way laws are proposed, passed, enacted, and imposed. Roy Moore in effect tried to say that he was free to interpret the first amendment any way he liked, since he was God's messenger. Where is the rule of law in that? He couldn't wait to appeal his case. He couldn't wait to pass laws in the legislature overriding Thompson, etc... American laws should be rational. They can be argued in terms of "I believe God would prefer this..." but not in terms of "I believe I can impose this on you because it is God's will." There's a big difference, and it's very important. Will laws about stealing and murder be similar to the 10 commandments? Yes, and they're frequently this way under other religions as well. But what about the first four commandments? I couldn't support any of these laws going on our books. The reasons are many, but clearly they put the state in charge of men's faith.
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