KJ
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(8/17/03 5:07 pm)
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True Faith!
MONTGOMERY, Alabama (CNN) -- The Alabama chief justice locked in a fierce battle with a federal court vowed Thursday that he would not remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state's judicial building's rotunda.
In a fiery speech given just six days before a federal deadline to remove the monument, Chief Justice Roy Moore said he would take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"I have no intention of removing the monument of the Ten Commandments, the moral foundation of our law," he said. "To do so would, in effect, be a disestablishment of the justice system of this state.
"The question is not whether I will remove the monument," Moore added. "It is not a question of whether I will disobey or obey a court order. The real question is whether or not I will deny the God that created us."
Earlier this month U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson set an August 20 deadline for the 5,300-pound monument's removal and suggested he would impose hefty daily fines against the state if Moore fails to comply with the order. Thompson said the monument's presence on public property violates the federal Constitution's ban on government promotion of religion.
Moore accused Thompson of "abuse of power," "callous disregard to the people of this state," and "threatening to drain huge amounts of public funds from the state of Alabama," because of the cost of the ongoing legal battle.
The controversy over the monument stems from a lawsuit filed in October 2001 by three organizations on behalf of three Alabama lawyers who often had business at the judicial building and said the monument offended them.
Moore had the monument moved into the building's rotunda on July 31, 2001, saying that the Ten Commandments represent the moral foundation of American law.
Last year Judge Thompson ruled in favor last year of the attorneys opposed to the monument's presence on public property.
Moore appealed the decision, but in July the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia, ruled unanimously that Moore violated the constitutional separation of church and state by installing the monument.
The court's ruling compared Moore to segregationist Southern governors of the past who refused to integrate college campuses even after federal court orders to do so -- and predicted that if Moore appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court he would lose.
Moore said Thursday that he would turn to the nation's highest court. He said on Friday he will file with the U.S. Supreme Court a motion calling on Thompson to halt his "wrongful interference of state government."
Moore said he will file the motion "to preserve our rights as a state and nation to acknowledge God."
"Separation of church and state never was meant to separate God from our government. It was never meant to separate God from our law," he said.
The First Amendment's "very purpose is to allow us the freedom to worship Almighty God. That freedom is being taken from us by federal courts who misuse the First Amendment to take away our rights instead of as a shield to preserve them for us."
Moore said he will take on other state officials who stand by Thompson's decision. "Each of them has also taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States."
Moore has long been associated with the Ten Commandments. When he began his judicial career at a circuit court in Etowah County he hung a hand-carved, wooden plaque of the Ten Commandments behind the bench in his courtroom.
During his campaign for the chief justice position in November 2000, his campaign committee ran television and radio commercials and posted billboards calling him the "Ten Commandments Judge."
(Three cheers for da judge. . . here come da judge! But wait!)
MONTGOMERY, Alabama (AP) -- The attorney general and Alabama Supreme Court associate justices are distancing themselves from the state's chief justice, who has pledged to defy a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state's judicial building.
Chief Justice Roy Moore said Thursday he had "no intention" of obeying the order to remove the monument from the building, where he moved it in the middle of the night in 2001. He has said that the Ten Commandments represent the moral foundation of American law.
Attorney General Bill Pryor said Thursday he would refuse to help Moore violate the court order, which could result in contempt fines of about $5,000 a day against the state. He declined to say what specific action he would take.
At the same time, Moore's colleagues on the state Supreme Court met to discuss whether they can invoke a state law that lets a majority of the nine justices overrule an administrative action by the chief justice.
Senior Associate Justice Gorman Houston said the justices "will take whatever steps are necessary" to make certain that the state of Alabama doesn't have to pay fines.
But the justices took no immediate action as Moore prepared to file his initial pleading Friday with the U.S. Supreme Court to stop any removal of the monument.
Meanwhile, attorneys suing to remove the monument filed a complaint Thursday with the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission accusing Moore of violating judicial ethics by refusing to obey a court order.
Supporters cheered Moore's claim that a federal court doesn't have the legal authority to make a state judge remove the monument.
"It's so rare to find someone who would make a stand," said Rick Scarborough, president of Vision America, a national association of churches and pastors who have supported Moore.
Pryor said he personally believes the Old Testament laws can be displayed legally but that doesn't change his responsibility as attorney general.
"I have a duty to obey all orders of courts even when I disagree with those orders," Pryor said in a statement.
Moore's declaration came six days before the courts' August 20 deadline for the 5,300-pound granite monument to be removed from the judicial building rotunda, where it is in clear sight of visitors coming in the main entrance.
With Christian groups planning several rallies over the next week to show support of the monument, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Barry Lynn, accused Moore of creating a circus out of the Ten Commandments issue.
"If Judge Moore can't in good conscience comply with a lawful federal court order, he ought to resign," Lynn said.
(Heh, Christian cowards, heretics, pagans, or atheist? Pick one! Here come's the Lord's ARMY. . . sweet little old Christian ladies are the Generals! )
Crowd rallies to support chief justice's Ten Commandments monument
Saturday, August 16, 2003 Posted: 7:48 PM EDT (2348 GMT)
MONTGOMERY, Alabama (AP) -- Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore told thousands of supporters Saturday that he would be guilty of treason if he didn't fight to keep a monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the state judicial building.
Drawing cheers and shouts of "amen" at a rally, Moore said his crusade to keep the 5,300-pound monument was not about bolstering his own political career, as some have claimed.
"Let's get this straight. It's about the acknowledgment of God," Moore said in front of the Alabama Capitol.
Buses and vans from as far away as California brought Moore supporters to Montgomery for an enthusiastic rally on a hot and muggy morning. Evangelist Jerry Falwell and former presidential candidate Alan Keyes were among a half-dozen speakers urging the crowd to take back America from what Keyes described as the "unruly courts."
The rally was organized after U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson in Montgomery ordered Moore to remove the monument from the judicial building by Wednesday. Thompson and a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled that the monument is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion by government.
Police would not estimate the size of the crowd, which appeared to be several thousand people, possibly as many as 10,000.
Falwell said Moore is right to defy Thompson's order if he believes he is obeying God.
"Civil disobedience is the right of all men when we believe breaking man's law is needed to preserve God's law," Falwell said.
Evelyn Bradley of Norwalk, California, said she made the trip because "the Ten Commandments is the most precious and most important thing in my life right now."
"No judge has the right to tell us we can't post them," said Bradley, 73.
After the rally hundreds of people walked several blocks to the judicial building, where they lined up to view the monument inside. Some debated with about 35 atheists holding a counter protest across the street.
"Personally I believe in science and reason and the only way you can have freedom of religion is to have separation of church and state," said Todd Kinley, a research scientist from Huntsville participating in the counter protest.
(Let us pray for these antichrists, that their souls repent, and are quickened by Christ, less they burn in hell. ANYTHING Sent from Father is worthy of any court room in this land!)
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