A classic case of trying to have it both ways. Basically Moore is trying to pander to the inbred vote without actually defying any court orders.
Probably for A) the pritty language and B) the imposing nature of such. “Now, don’t you go killin’ anyone, y’hear?” … “Thou Shalt Not Murder”. Which is more imposing?
Surprised it hasn’t yet, actually.
Moot. And incidentally, do you happen to know if he believes that commandment is “thou shalt not bear false witness” or “thou shalt not lie” or such? There are differences of opinion as to how that’s translated.
Regardless, he’s broken the oft-forgot “Thou Shalt Not Be An Asshat”. Too many people forget to repent of that one.
It gets better–here is the text of the oath of office required of legislative, executive, and judicial officers in Alabama:
“I, _______, solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Alabama, so long as I continue a citizen thereof, and that I will faithfully and honestly discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter, to the best of my ability. So help me God.”
I presume that the last sentence is now optional, but I am reasonably certain Moore would have used it. Since he has violated that oath, this means that he has also taken the name of the Lord in vain in the original sense. My, my, another commandment broken.
(Steve, carrot, jjimm…consider yourselves fish-slapped. :D)
I wish** Roy Moore was “all mute”!
<sigh> That’s what I get for being uppity and not previewing.
MOOT - insert it wherever it necessary.
Still think Moore’s a goober. 
Oh and Alabama being just one big small town and all… Someone pointed out that in all the publicity of the last few years over this, exactly where Moore attends church hasn’t been listed. I’ve spoken to who used to be his pastor in Etowah County (and who now is pastor of a methodist church here in town). According to the pastor, Moore rarely went to service before putting the TC on the wall of his courtroom. Then he was all over the place - until the furor died down. Just showed up on Easter, Christmas and Mother’s day after that. Until the cameras came around again.
Goober.
:smack:
Gee, the fact that you can’t find anything “even remotely close” to the First Commandment doesn’t clue you in that maybe, just maybe, our laws don’t fucking relate to the Ten Commandments?!?
“The United States is a nation based on the Ten Commandments (except for that whole bit about having laws which mandate which God you worship).”
“The United States is a Marxist-Leninist nation (except for that whole bit about the state owning the principal means of production, and being controlled by a vanguard revolutionary party).”
You don’t actually “have to” post anything, you know.
And you don’t have to lighten the fuck up either, but it would be nice. Can’t a drunk guy have a little fun around here?
If someone posts something that essentially says “If you’re not in group X, you are violating sacred commandment number one sinner” in their courtroom, am I really supposed to think that I can get a fair trial there, or safely be a witness? When someone acting AS the government is telling me outright that I am in direct conflict with what they believe is the most basic core of the law?
What does that have to do with the business of civil justice?
I’m trying to find the place in the Bible where one is ordered to erect an imposing momument in the name of the people right in the middle of a public courthouse… I’m… not… finding it.
He can exercise any aspect of his religion anyplace he wants to in any way he, personally, wants to. But the court belongs to the PEOPLE. It’s not his courthouse, no matter how much of a God-ordained ruler he thinks he is (he obviously thinks this is his own private kingdom). In this country, he is no better than anyone else in regards to religion, jsut because he has uncommon civil power: the right to have a religion is reserved exclusively to the people. Being a judge gives you certian powers, not every power you decide to appropriate for yourself. It isn’t devolved off on the judges to proclaim what religious ideas are correct and which are not. So AS a judge, on PUBLIC property, he doesn’t have any authority at all to make pronouncements about religion. That usurps the PEOPLE’S rightful authority. If he doesn’t like that aspect of being a judge, he can quit.
And here I was thinking that smack was you smacking yourself for not realizing that **pkbites was making a (admittedly snarky) joke. I’m pretty sure he was just grooving on the silliness of the idea of the Ten Ordinances engraved in marble.
Daniel
A few clarifications are in order here, it seems.
First, Judge Moore solicited the funds for the monument from private sources; no taxpayer money was involved. In his comments regarding the decision to install the monument during the evening hours, he states that this was to avoid disruption of governmental business.
Second, while the Ten Commandments, in somewhat edited form, do grace the top of the stone monument, other statements are contained on the sides; examples include excerpts of the Alabama State Constitution, Declaration of Independence, national anthem, Pledge of Allegiance, our national motto, followed by personal observations of Presidents Washington and Jefferson, first chief Supreme Court justice John Jay, among others.
Third, this ongoing juggernaut by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, et al, in all actuality constitutes an attempt at religious cleansing in public arenas. The consensus seems to be that one can (if one has little else to do) be “religious” in private, but public declarations are taboo. This hyper-censorship is becoming more and more prevalent.
As one last point here: I see more and more dopers questioning whether a Christian* can properly maintain a private faith and hold public office with integrity. The attitude seems to be that Christians, unlike, say, atheists, are suspect when it comes to performing positions of public authority according to established law and process. As if, one hints, Christians are seeking some unfair advantage by incorporating personal beliefs into public mandates; no, no group ever does that, only those pesky Christians.
*I specify Christians for two reasons: they’re an easy target on this board, and it’s simply too much trouble to play along with the pretense of evading the issue using a term like “person of faith” or throwing in Jews or Muslims, as neither, in my opinion, are the target of such actions to such degree.
Bullshit.
The objection isn’t to public religion, it’s to state religion. No one is saying that a church can’t publicly proclaim the Ten Commandments–just about every church I see has a sign board out front which proclaims to the public whatever message the church wants, whether it’s “Services this Sunday at 7 AM and 11 AM” or “Repent in the name of the LORD”. There are billboards which contain what purport to be messages from God. There are Christian programs on broadcast TV, cable TV, and radio. There are countless Christian websites of all varieties. Christians publish books, magazines, and newspapers; there are Christian bookstores to sell those books, and just about every nondenominational bookstore has a section for religious books, including Christian books. My local newspaper has an entire section on religion every Saturday, and runs plenty of other stories on religious affairs outside of that section. And Christians are still free to “witness” to everyone else one-on-one, whether it’s by organized missionary efforts–going door-to-door or standing on streetcorners passing out leaflets–or just by striking up conversations with friends and acquiantances.
But somehow this isn’t enough. The courthouse and the city hall–which are paid for and belong to and exist for everyone, believers and atheists alike–also have to proclaim Christianity, or else Christians claim “hyper-censorship”.
My home doesn’t have the Ten Commandments posted anywhere (although there are a couple of Bibles lying around). I suppose this is another example of the cruel tyranny under which American Christians must live. I should have to put up a plaque of the Ten Commandments in my living room, or else NaSultainne is being repressed!
The source of the funding is irrelevant. He is the Chief Justice and has the responsibility of maintaining the rotunda. He chose to put the Ten Commandments to show that we are subject to God’s law. Whether he got the money from donations, gambling or prostitution is irrelevant.
But it was awfully nice for him to “avoid disruption” by doing it at night. I got a bridge to sell you.
So what. First, he put it up to cover his ass as the court’s opinion makes quite clear. Second, none of the other displays are visible to a person standing at the Ten Commandments display.
“Yeah, but the other stuff I put up doesn’t violate the Constitution” is not the most compelling argument.
Oh, I don’t know, Zoff, the old “Yea but” argument is a standard in debating excellence, isn’t it???
Maybe Jews and Muslims aren’t “targets” because Jews and Muslims don’t seem to be so if you’ll pardon the expression hell-bent on demanding special government recognition for their religions. You just don’t hear about Jews slipping into courthouses in the middle of the night and installing two-and-a-half ton menorahs.
And isn’t there some rather important symbolism in putting the Commandments above the other statements?
This is by far the finest response to the complaint that I have ever heard or read.
Yeah. And not only that, I’d like to show that the extremeisms on both side of the issue are ridiculous! Which why I tried coming up with something to fuck with both of their heads! It seems to me that each side gives the other side ammunition for their motivation. I think maybe (just maybe) if the anti-religion zealots would let some small things slide, maybe the religious kooks wouldn’t be so hell-bent on fighting them at every turn. And maybe if the religious kooks would stop trying to stick up monuments, and the 10 commandments on every bare wall they see, the anti’s might not be so hell bent on fighting them.
The Founding Fathers whom wrote the First Amendment were not all atheists, but they weren’t fire and brimstone Christians either. It seems many of them were Deists or moderate Christians. Many of their words and documents were LIGHTLY sprinkled with terms like “creator”, “Natures God”, or “Providence”. From all that I read I don’t think they would have found small, occassional references to religion in a government building a violation of the 1st Amendment. But I’d be willing to bet they wouldn’t like folks who try cramming their religion down everyones throats with huge plaques and monuments.
What I don’t get is, why is it that the people who want to post the 10 Commandments up everywhere, always seem to be Christians? The Ten Commandments is a Jewish document. Show me a significant number of Jews who want to plaster the court house walls with it. I’ve never heard of any.
Wow, I actually agree with pkbites.
AND I got his joke, FWIW.
Well, then, I guess I pretty much agree with pkbites on all the substantive issues. What I don’t understand is how we get to this “extremists on both sides” thing. An “extremist” on my side of the issue would be someone who goes around protesting when churches or individual Christian citizens publicly post the Ten Commandments on private property. (That is, the godless atheistic heathen side of the “Is there a God?” issue, since such a person clearly wouldn’t be on my side of the “church-state separation/religious liberty” issue.) There’s no need for some “grand compromise” that avoids the “extremism” of both positions. If you want to publicly proclaim your religious faith–and note that I’m not just talking about hanging a cross on the wall of your Secret Underground Persecuted Church down in the catacombs–you can easily do so in ways that don’t include any state involvement or attempt to gain state endorsement of your religious views.
Churches have front lawns, and almost all of them have those signboards out front. There are countless Christian-owned businesses across the U.S.A., which also have front lawns. Heck, I’ve seen ads in the phone book with Christian symbols or Bible verses–not ads for churches, ads for insurance salesmen or car dealers or lawyers. Many individual Christians have front lawns as well. They also have cars with bumpers on them (most of them do, anyway), and all of them have bodies on which may be worn T-shirts. Then there are billboards, and radio stations, and full-page advertisments in the local newspaper…
And you can use all of those things to proclaim your religious message, and if anyone tries to stop you, the “extremists” in the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State will be on your side!
This Year’s Model: Thanks!
In case it wasn’t clear before, Moore has reaffirmed the purpose for putting the Ten Commandments in the rotunda: “Let’s get this straight. It’s about the acknowledgment of God,” Moore said in front of the Alabama Capitol.
I’m reluctant to condemn this line of debate outright, since I find myself using it in arguments with my wife. Unfortunately, Mrs. Zoff goes 11th Circuit on my ass.
Speaking of debating excellence, the good Chief Justice apparently also realized that he had neglected to make absolutely every stupid argument available to him. He quickly remedied the situation by saying he would be “guilty of treason” if he removed the monument. While I’m tempted to merely note this argument without comment, I hope you’ll indulge a little editorial. This man is a judge. He should either stop making such stupid legal arguments while on the bench, or resign so he only taints himself with his stupidity instead of bringing the Alabama justice system into the picture.
I suspect Sauron is right, and Moore is campaigning for office. Could the Alabama Dopers please petition for a special election and elect him dogcatcher so he’ll get the hell off the bench?