Six
days before a court-imposed deadline, Alabama Chief Justice
Roy Moore declared his decision. “I have no intention of
removing the monument of the Ten Commandments and the moral
foundation of our law,” he told media and cheering
supporters.
To do so, he said, would be to “deny the God that
created us and endowed us with certain inalienable rights
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.”
Moore’s announcement came as he faced a federal order
to take a 2 ½ ton granite monument depicting the Ten
Commandments out of Alabama’s Judicial Building by August 20
or face fines, levied against the state of Alabama, starting
at $5,000 daily, and possibly doubling each week.
The order stems from lawsuits filed in 2001 by the ACLU
and two other groups, Americans United for Separation of
Church and State, and the Southern Poverty Law Center,
charging that the monument violates the First Amendment. In
July, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling
that the monument is unconstitutional and sent the case back
to federal district judge Myron Thompson, who set the August
20 deadline to remove the display.
Moore, who is appealing his case to the U.S.
Supreme Court, is also asking the High Court to stay the
order to remove the monument, pending the outcome of his
appeal. Coral Ridge Ministries, with the assistance of the
Alliance Defense Fund, is preparing a friend of the
court brief asking the Court to take Moore’s case.
Friends of |
Coral Ridge
Ministries have made it possible, since 2002, to donate
$375,000 to Moore’s legal defense fund.
Judicial
“Shock and Awe”
Federal District Judge Myron Thompson’s order to remove
the monument was delivered by federal marshals not just to
Moore, but to 14 other state officials, in a judicial “shock
and awe” campaign that included the governor, attorney
general, and the eight other members of the Alabama Supreme
Court—none of whom are parties to the case.
Please see
Commandments, page 4
Rally Attracts Thousands“Let’s get it straight,” Alabama Supreme Court Chief
Justice Roy Moore told a rally at the Alabama state
capitol on August 16. The Ten Commandments controversy,
he said, is not about him, nor about politics, nor about
religion. “It’s about one thing. It’s about the
acknowledgement of the God upon which this nation and
our laws are founded.”
The decision to defy a federal order to remove the
monument, he said, stemmed from his duty to God and
country. “If I should fail to do my duty in this case,
for fear of giving offense, I would consider myself
guilty of treason toward my country and of an act of
disloyalty to the majesty of Heaven, which I revere
above all earthly kings.”
Please see
Rally, page 4
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