Roy Moore, 'defender of the Constitution'

[Lateralus]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/08/14/alabama.tencommandments/index.html

“Separation of church and state never was meant to separate God from our government. It was never meant to separate God from our law.”

Hmmm… I was under the impression that this exactly what is designed to do.

“[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.”

The freedom to worship isn’t even an issue here. The issue brought up by Thompson is that by placing the Ten Commandments in a government building is essentially sponsorship of a particular religion by the state. Precisely what the First Amendment was designed to prevent.

Furthermore, no rights are being taken away here. The state has no right to favor a particular religion, and by placing the Ten Commandments in a court, it is essentially being used as a way to scare people.

“Look here Mr. Wannabe Criminal Man, our religion says right here that you aren’t supposed to [blank]. Maybe you should have thought of that before you committed [blank]!” holier-than-thou stance taken by speaker

Does anyone take these people seriously anymore?

:rolleyes:

[booka]

Silly judge.

[iampunha]

Roy Moore is well known for his interesting and creative beliefs regarding not only the First Amendment but also what role the Ten Commandments should play in being placed in federal buildings. IIRC he’s one of those famous for sneaking giant Ten Commandments thingies inside buildings and making a giant legal fuss if anyone tries to take them out.

One reason to be glad you don’t live in Alabama. Then again, Virginia (my home state) isn’t exactly a bastion of secular vs. religious thought, so perhaps I shouldn’t be so castigatory.

[SPOOFE]

Why shouldn’t the government be allowed to display items from a work of fiction?

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

So your contention is that religion and belief has no place in government? People might be afraid or intimidated if a judge decides something based on religious values?

Geez. I guess that disqualifies the vast majority of all judges. We’d better get looking for some atheists toot sweet.

[iampunha]

I believe Lateralus’ belief is that the government shouldn’t outwardly be sponsoring/endorsing/agreeing with any specific religion.

If a judge decided something based on religious values, here are a few things we might see happen:

Jail time for “taking the name of the lord in vain”

Women’s rights removed

Stoning enforced

Slavery

Judges are supposed to rely upon the secular law of their jurisdiction (the terminology and procedure here of course depending on the situation), not whatever they heard in church on Sunday.

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

Is that judge government, or is he an individual exercising his right to free speech and/or freedom to practice whatever religion he wants to?

That’s the question.

[Lateralus]

*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF *
**Is that judge government, or is he an individual exercising his right to free speech and/or freedom to practice whatever religion he wants to?

That’s the question. **

When he takes office, he takes an oath to do his job to the best of his ability and to uphold the principles of the Constitution. Therefore, while at work, he has a responsibility to remain secular (within reason) when making decisions that affect the public.

When not at work, or making decisions that don’t affect the public, he is free to choose as he so pleases.

Having that huge rotunda installed would cost taxpayers a considerable amount of money, therefore it is within the realm of the former. He didn’t have a few choice quotes from the Q’ran put alongside the Ten Commandments, did he?

• Lat

[Voyager]

*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF *
**Is that judge government, or is he an individual exercising his right to free speech and/or freedom to practice whatever religion he wants to?

That’s the question. **

He can put anything he wants in his living room. In his courtroom, which is government, not private property, it doesn’t belong.

I wonder who paid for this thing? If the taxpayers did, he is using public money for a private purpose, and he’s a thief also.

BTW, do you think a Jewish judge should be allowed to put people in jail for working on Saturday?

[iampunha]

Lemme make sure I understand your question, Airman. You’re asking if Moore was acting as a private citizen or as a government employee when he put the commandments in?

Incidentally, I’m not sure it matters. A government entity sponsoring that religious stone work is violation of law.

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.

…

Last year Judge Thompson ruled in favor last year of the attorneys opposed to the monument’s presence on public property.

Seems to me that regardless of if Moore was acting as judge or Joe Everyman, the issue is whether or not its placement in a government building is in violation of the relevant laws and such.

Incidentally:

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.

So I’d say it’s at least possible that Moore put the stone tablets there as judge. ISTR hearing about this before and that was what Moore did, but I can’t dig up anything definitive.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF *
**Is that judge government, or is he an individual exercising his right to free speech and/or freedom to practice whatever religion he wants to?

That’s the question. **

The judicial branch happens to be one of the three branches of government, so yes, he is part of the government (that was easy).

A courthouse is a government bulding intended for government use only. If a representive of the government endorses a particular religious cod within the context of his governmental duties and on government property he is violating the establishment clause, pure and simple. The Supreme Court has already ruled on this case, you know (or do you know constitutional law better than they do?)

[Spavined_Gelding]

*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF *
**Is that judge government, or is he an individual exercising his right to free speech and/or freedom to practice whatever religion he wants to?

That’s the question. **

That is not the question at all.

The question is to what extent may a public official use the power of his public office to support or endorse what may be moral or ethical positions that are the tenants of a particular religious faith and to force the public to acquest or participate in the worship services of that particular faith. For example, what if the Commanding General, Flat Rock Air Force Base, put a rosary in the cockpit of all aircraft based at Flat Rock or posted the litany of the rosary behind the bar in the enlisted club, or mounted a crucifix on the face of his headquarters building. A proper exercise of his power? Somehow if he is not allowed to do this his right to worship freely is infringed? The answer to all three questions has to be no. What he is deprived of is not the free exercise his own religion but rather the ability to require others to worship and adore in the manner he approves.

The First Amendment freedom of worship clause did not spring into being in a vacuum like Venus from Jupiter’s’s forehead. It arose in a historical context, notably the English Civil War and the Protectorate and the rule of the Lieutenant Generals in the mid-seventeenth century, the European Wars of Religion and the colonial experience. Remember that the Pilgrim Separatists did not come to America so much to be able to worship without interference (which they could do and did do in the Netherlands) so much as to be able to force every one around them to think, believe and worship as they did. Witness the experience of Baptists, Quakers and other non-Calvinist believers in the Bay Colony. Look at the experience of Roman Catholics in England and Scotland, let alone Ireland. The Founders had a vivid demonstration of the damage the combination of State and Church could do.

It is just disingenuous to say that somehow Judge Moore’s right to freedom of conscious and faith are infringed when he is not allowed to put religious symbols in a public building, let alone a public building that houses the one institution dedicated to preservation of rights and the prevention of injustice, or not permitted to require little kids to pray to his God a school where their attendance is required.

[John_Carter_of_Mars]

Judge Moore has now vowed to defy the upper courts and leave his monument in place.
This is a man who took an oath to uphold the law.

He might like his commandments, but he’s a liar by definition. He lied when he broke his oath of office.

Dipshit!

[robertliguori]

The First Amendment freedom of worship clause did not spring into being in a vacuum like Venus from Jupiter’s’s forehead.

Athena. Venus sprang from Cronos’s severed testicles.

[pkbites]

Instead of posting the
Ten Commandments , how about posting the laws which are relating to the Ten Commandments? It will be legal to do, and it will be a partial victory for both sides AND a partial loss for both sides. The atheists will get their way because the 10 Commandments will be gone, but they’ll be annoyed that the laws reminding them of them are posted, and the religion kooks will be happy the laws pertaining to the Ten Commandments are up, yet they’ll be annoyed that the actual Commandments aren’t posted. A feeling of confusing thoughts will befall both sides of the issue, which is hilarious because folks on both sides on this issue NEED TO GET A LIFE!:mad:

*Treason 946.01
*Disorderly Conduct 947.01
*Car dealers closed on sunday 218.0145
*Anyone under 18 is a child 48.02920
*First-degree intentional homicide 940.01
*Adultry 944.15
*Theft 943.20
*Defamation 942.01
*Stalking 940.32
*Burglary 943.10

I’m using Wisconsin statutes here. Replace with your state/local laws.

[Leaper]

*Originally posted by robertliguori *

The First Amendment freedom of worship clause did not spring into being in a vacuum like Venus from Jupiter’s’s forehead.

**Athena. Venus sprang from Cronos’s severed testicles. **

And you’re mixing Roman/Greek gods. You mean Minerva.

[TVAA]

I vote that Roy Moore’s head should be placed on a pike, as a warning to the next ten generations that you can’t put the Ten Commandments in a courthouse.

We can then look up into his lifeless eyes, and wave, like this.

[MEBuckner]

Hey, pkbites, I had no idea that the State of Wisconsin defined “worshipping false gods” or “making graven images” as “treason”. Oh, wait, the State of Wisconsin doesn’t do that, does it? Why, I bet the State of Wisconsin doesn’t even publicly execute Pentecostals and atheists! I bet the State of Wisconsin doesn’t even publicly flog Pentecostals and atheists, or even fine them or anything! I bet that silly, heretical, Godless, un-Biblical old State of Wisconsin says that Pentecostals and atheists and other nasty old idolaters have “freedom of religion”, if you can believe such a thing. How the State of Wisconsin (and the other 49 states) are able to reconcile our nation’s Godly Heritage of a legal system founded on the Ten Commandments and letting all those Papists, Protestants, Pentecostals, Heretics, Arians, Mormons, Trinitarians, Sabbatarians, anti-Sabbatarians, Jews, Saracens, Pagans, Idol-Worshippers, Witches, Pantheists, Atheists, Infidels, and Heathens go unstoned is beyond me, but that’s lawyers for ya.

[rjung]

*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF *
So your contention is that religion and belief has no place in government? People might be afraid or intimidated if a judge decides something based on religious values?

Well, yeah. Like, duh.

To take an example, say you’ve got a judge who’s a Christian fundamentalist who strongly believes that homosexuals are sinners and that it’s his religious and moral duty to punish gays at all times. Now say you have this judge ruling in a case with a gay defendant accused of child molestation, and the judge does not hide his anti-homosexual bias in the courtroom. The defendant could rightly feel that, because of the judge’s bias, he has no chance of receiving a fair trial – facts be damned, the judge is gonna rule from his religious values, and the defendant’s goose is cooked from square one.

Damn straight we should keep religious beliefs out of government; that whole first amendment wasn’t written for giggles, you know…

[Zoff]

I hope they come down on Roy Moore down hard. His conduct is completely inexcusable. I enjoyed the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision (Note: it’s a .pdf file) on this matter. Here’s the conclusion, which I think is beautiful:

 The clear implication of Chief Justice Moore’s argument is that no government official who heads one of the three branches of any state or of the federal government, and takes an oath of office to defend the Constitution, as all of them do, is subject to the order of any court, at least not of any federal court below the Supreme Court. In the regime he champions, each high government official can decide whether the Constitution requires or permits a federal court order and can act accordingly. That, of course, is the same position taken by those southern governors who attempted to defy federal court orders during an earlier era. See generally, e.g., Meredith v. Fair, 328 F.2d 586, 589-90 (5th Cir. 1962) (en banc) (enjoining Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett from interfering with the district court’s order to admit a black student to the University of Mississippi); Williams v. Wallace, 240 F. Supp. 100, 110 (M.D. Ala. 1965) (Johnson, J.) (enjoining Alabama  governor George C. Wallace from interfering with and failing to provide police protection for plaintiffs’ march from Selma to Montgomery); cf. United States v. Barnett, 376 U.S. 681, 84 S. Ct. 984 (1964) (holding that the Governor of Mississippi was not entitled to a jury trial on a charge of criminal contempt for willfully disobeying a temporary restraining order of a federal district court).

 Any notion of high government officials being above the law did not save those governors from having to obey federal court orders, and it will not save this chief justice from having to comply with the court order in this case. See U.S. Const. A rt. III, § 1; id. Art. VI, cl. 2. What a different federal district court judge wrote forty years ago, in connection with the threat of another high state official to defy a federal court order, remains true today:

In the final analysis, the concept of law and order, the very essence of a republican form of government, embraces the notion that when the judicial process of a state or federal court, acting within the sphere of its competence, has been exhausted and has resulted in a final judgment, all persons affected thereby are obliged to obey it.

United States v. Wallace, 218 F. Supp. 290, 292 (N.D. Ala. 1963) (enjoining Governor George C. Wallace from interfering with the court-ordered desegregation of the University of Alabama); accord, e.g., Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U .S. 1, 78 S. Ct. 1401 (1958); Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U.S. 378, 397-98, 53 S. Ct. 190, 195 (1932) (stating that if a state Governor could nullify a federal court order “that the fiat of a state Governor, and not the Constitution of the United States, would be the supreme law of the land; that the restrictions of the Federal Constitution upon the exercise o f state power would be but impotent phrases”).
The rule of law does require that every person obey judicial orders when all available means of appealing them have been exhausted. The chief justice of a state supreme court, of all people, should be expected to abide by that principle.
We do expect that if he is unable to have the district court’s order overturned through the usual appellate processes, when the time comes Chief Justice Moore will obey that order. If necessary, the court order will be enforced. The rule of law will prevail.