Chief Justice Roy Moore

Defender of the Decalogue

Tue Dec 3 20:58:02 2002
208.152.73.178

Defender of the Decalogue
Interview of Chief Justice Roy Moore by Thomas R. Eddlem

Determined to preserve the Founders’ vision of God-given rights, Chief Justice Roy Moore has been targeted by Morris Dees and like-minded leftist radicals.
FULL STORY:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2002/12-16-2002/vo18no25_decalogue.htm


Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore first attracted national attention as an Alabama state circuit judge in 1995, when the ACLU unsuccessfully sued in an attempt to require the judge to remove from his courtroom a homemade plaque of the Ten Commandments. In 2000, Alabama voters elected Moore chief justice of the state Supreme Court. During the campaign, Moore had pledged to bring the Ten Commandments to the State Supreme Court to conform to the spirit of the Alabama state constitution. That constitution begins with a declaration that "to establish justice … and secure the blessings of liberty," the government will be based upon "invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God." Moore fulfilled his campaign promise by installing a granite monument of the Ten Commandments in the court rotunda, and was again sued by plaintiffs represented by agnostic and radical left organizations. On November 18th, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled that the marble monument must be removed within 30 days. Judge Moore, who plans to appeal the decision, was interviewed on November 21, 2002.

THE NEW AMERICAN: What prompted you to put the Ten Commandments monument in the courthouse in the first place?

Chief Justice Roy Moore: The Commandments were placed in the court to acknowledge the moral foundation of our law and the foundation of our government.

TNA: Some people might say that they don’t understand the connection between our country’s laws and the Ten Commandments, which were written long before 1776. Where is the connection?

Moore: The connection is in the foundational documents of our country, including the Declaration of Independence. It says in the first sentence that we are founded upon the "Laws of Nature" and "Nature’s God." "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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." In those three sentences, you can plainly see that the laws of God give us the right to be a power among the other powers on the Earth and that it was God that gave us our rights æ not government. And government’s only role is to secure our rights for us. And if it should fail to do so, then the Declaration says that "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."

The Ten Commandments are the divinely revealed law. In the laws of England — where we get the words "Laws of Nature" and "Nature’s God" — divine law is a direct part of the law of nature. In a very real sense, the Ten Commandments represent the "Laws of Nature" and "Nature’s God" upon which our country was founded. Also, in a deeper sense, the Ten Commandments are the basis of our freedom of conscience, which flows from the first table of the law. The forefathers, including James Madison, felt very strongly that the duties that we owe to God were outside of government’s prerogative, that government had no business interfering with the way we worship God. Therefore, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" was made part of the First Amendment.

Monumental controversy
Paul L. Puckett
Monumental controversy: U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson has ruled it unconstitutional to display this granite monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama state Supreme Court. Roy Moore, chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, notes that the Commandments are "the moral foundation of our law...."

TNA: The First Amendment prohibits Congress from making laws "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The U.S. Circuit Court in your case ruled that a Ten Commandments monument in an Alabama state court building was a violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause. How exactly do your actions as a state chief justice amount to Congress establishing a national church?

Moore: I know what you are talking about; you are asking about [the First Amendment applying only to] Congress. I understand the debate between those who would say that the 14th Amendment put the strictures of the First Amendment to the states. They fail to recognize the defeat of the Blaine Amendment in Congress in the mid-1800s.* But that is not really the point. The point is that knowledge of God is not prohibited under the First Amendment. And indeed, it is the right of the states to acknowledge God, as it is the right of the federal government to acknowledge its source of power. The state of Alabama has a specific interest in this, since the first sentence of our constitution says that "to establish justice" we must invoke "the favor and guidance of Almighty God."

TNA: Are you establishing a state religion with the monument?

Moore: The judge in his own words said that he did not have the expertise to define the word "religion." In fact, in a 79-page opinion he used the word "religion" or "religious" close to 150 times and can’t define the term. He said that I was establishing a religion, and it is very curious as to how a court can say you are doing something when that court can’t even define what you are doing. This is true of many federal courts around the country. They misunderstand the First Amendment.

TNA: Judge Thompson ruled that the Ten Commandments monument is "an obvious effort to proselytize on behalf of a particular religion," but then failed to make clear what religion your monument was proselytizing on behalf of. The written opinion first stated that it proselytized on behalf of your personal religion, though the decision never mentioned the denomination you belong to or defined the creed you affirm. Later the judge stated that it proselytized on behalf of Christianity. Why a reproduction of the Ten Commandments would proselytize on behalf of Christianity alone and not Judaism, when both faiths hold fast to the Ten Commandments, was likewise unexplained. Why was the judge so vague about the establishment of the particular religion this monument would supposedly create?

Moore: The judge was unclear because he can’t define the term "religion." And that’s not only true with this judge, but also with many of the federal courts across our land who seem to think, erroneously, that the acknowledgement of God is synonymous with religion. Indeed, the acknowledgement of God is not synonymous with religion. The definition of the term "religion" — taken from George Mason, James Madison, and the United States Supreme Court — was "the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it," which is your form of worship or articles of faith. The definition of religion is plain in history; it is plain in law; and it is what the federal courts are now disregarding.

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