The 10 Commandments & Alabama

[CMichael]

From the WSJ. The author is the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

ENDOWED BY OUR CREATOR

In God I Trust
Why I'm standing up for the Ten Commandments in Alabama.

BY ROY S. MOORE
Monday, August 25, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT

MONTGOMERY, Ala.--The battle over the Ten Commandments monument I brought into Alabama's Supreme Court is not about a monument and not about politics. (The battle is not even about religion, a term defined by our Founders as "the duty we owe to our creator and the manner for discharging it.") Federal Judge Myron Thompson, who ordered the monument's removal, and I are in perfect agreement on the fact that the issue in this case is: "Can the state acknowledge God?"

Those were the precise words used by Judge Thompson in his closing remarks in open court. Today, I argue for the rule of law, and against any unilateral declaration of a judge to ban the acknowledgment of God in the public sector.

We must acknowledge God in the public sector because the state constitution explicitly requires us to do so. The Alabama Constitution specifically invokes "the favor and guidance of Almighty God" as the basis for our laws and justice system. As the chief justice of the state's supreme court I am entrusted with the sacred duty to uphold the state's constitution. I have taken an oath before God and man to do such, and I will not waver from that commitment.

By telling the state of Alabama that it may not acknowledge God, Judge Thompson effectively dismantled the justice system of the state. Judge Thompson never declared the Alabama Constitution unconstitutional, but the essence of his ruling was to prohibit judicial officers from obeying the very constitution they are sworn to uphold. In so doing, Judge Thompson and all who supported his order, violated the rule of law.

Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor and my fellow justices have argued that they must act to remove the monument to preserve the rule of law. But the precise opposite is true: Article VI of the Constitution makes explicitly clear that the Constitution, and the laws made pursuant to it, are "the supreme Law of the Land." Judge Thompson and the judges of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have all sworn oaths which bind them to support the Constitution as it is written--not as they would personally prefer it to be written.

By subjugating the people of Alabama to the unconstitutional edict by Judge Thompson, that public officials may not acknowledge God, the attorney general and my colleagues have made the fiat opinion of a judge supreme over the text of the Constitution. While agreeing with me that the Constitution is supreme, and that the opinion of Judge Thompson was contrary to the Constitution, the attorney general has argued that he must follow an order he himself believes to be in direct violation of the supreme law of the land.





One of the great influences on the Founding Fathers, common law sage William Blackstone, once pointed out that judges do not make laws, they interpret them. No judge has the authority to impose his will on the people of a state, and no judge has the constitutional authority to forbid public officials from acknowledging the same God specifically mentioned in the charter documents of our nation, the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.
My decision to disregard the unlawful order of the federal judge was not civil disobedience, but the lawful response of the highest judicial officer of the state to his oath of office. Had the judge declared the 13th Amendment prohibition on involuntary slavery to be illegal, or ordered the churches of my state burned to the ground, there would be little question in the minds of the people of Alabama and the U.S. that such actions should be ignored as unconstitutional and beyond the legitimate scope of a judge's authority. Judge Thompson's decision to unilaterally void the duties of elected officials under the state constitution and to prohibit judges from acknowledging God is equally unlawful.

For half a century the fanciful tailors of revisionist jurisprudence have been working to strip the public sector naked of every vestige of God and morality. They have done so based on fake readings and inconsistent applications of the First Amendment. They have said it is all right for the U.S. Supreme Court to publicly place the Ten Commandments on its walls, for Congress to open in prayer and for state capitols to have chaplains--as long as the words and ideas communicated by such do not really mean what they purport to communicate. They have trotted out before the public using words never mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, like "separation of church and state," to advocate, not the legitimate jurisdictional separation between the church and state, but the illegitimate separation of God and state.





The First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It does not take a constitutional scholar to recognize that I am not Congress, and no law has been passed. Nevertheless, Judge Thompson's order states that the acknowledgment of God crosses the line between the permissible and the impermissible and that to acknowledge God is to violate the Constitution.
Not only does Judge Thompson put himself above the law, but above God, as well. I say enough is enough. We must "dare defend our rights" as Alabama's state motto declares. No judge or man can dictate what we believe or in whom we believe. The Ninth and 10th Amendments are not a part of the Constitution simply to make the Bill of Rights a round number. The Ninth Amendment secured our right as a people. The 10th guaranteed our right as a sovereign state. Those are the rules of law.

Mr. Moore is the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama.

 

[Seminole]

I come to the High Road to read about and discuss issues relating to firearms. There are a number of forums on which discussions of church/state issues appropriate. This is not one of them.

 

[OF]

I come to the High Road to read about and discuss issues relating to firearms. There are a number of forums on which discussions of church/state issues appropriate. This is not one of them.

You are quite mistaken. Following from the L&P description:

Get informed on issues affecting the right to keep and bear arms and other civil rights. Coordinate activism, debate with allies and opponents. Discuss laws concerning firearm ownership, concealed carry and self-defense.

- Gabe

 

[Graystar]

I come to the High Road to read about and discuss issues relating to firearms. There are a number of forums on which discussions of church/state issues appropriate. This is not one of them.

While this is true, all issues regarding how the courts address our rights are important because, ultimately, it relates to our right to possess firearms.

For example, the recent sodomy ruling from the Supreme Court was very good for us because the Court noted that a state must have a valid reason for passing laws that restrict its citizens. Such a view can be benificial in a gun-rights battle, as we all know it is impossible for any state to prove with any reasonable certainty that firearm restrictions provide a public benefit.

Remember, it is the states that place bans and license requirements on handguns....not the Federal government. So it is important to keep a watch on this current legal battle between the Feds and Alabama. Remember that part of the Brady Law was ruled unconstitutional. The Feds don't always get their way. We have to understand who wins, and why, and used that knowledge to help preserve our rights.

 

[Preacherman]

Seminole, GRD and Graystar are right - L&P is the ONE forum on THR that is appropriate to discuss non-firearm issues that nevertheless relate to legal and/or political issues. Since the conflict between Judge Moore and the Federal and/or State legal systems is definitely legal, and certainly has political overtones, and involves a Constitutional issue, it qualifies for discussion here. Of course, our members are free to disregard this thread and stick to the more gun-related ones if they choose.

As for the article: Judge Moore has done this before, and is politically very savvy. I don't question his personal religious convictions (which I share): but the way in which he's handled this has me wondering whether he's taken his current stand not just out of personal religious conviction, or issues relating to the Alabama State constitution, but as a calculated move designed to put his name in the forefront of Alabama politics. What's the bet he'll run for Governor sometime?

 

[Goaltender66]

An interesting take from a different angle:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-hillyer082503.asp

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First, let's get this straight: Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is no hero. He's an oddball and a zealot.

Second, the exemplary public servants during the recent Ten Commandments brouhaha have been the eight associate justices of the Alabama supreme court, Gov. Bob Riley, and Attorney General Bill Pryor.

Third, if Senate Democrats had any shame (which of course they don't), they would, after observing Pryor's performance under fire during this episode, have begun apologizing to Pryor for their mistreatment of his federal judicial nomination. And they would announce plans to end their filibuster and give him an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

As for Roy Moore, he's usually not a bad judge in ordinary cases. But he has a messianic complex and a thirst for tactical martyrdom and the publicity it brings. For intelligent advocates of appropriate public displays of the Ten Commandments, Moore's cause is the wrong case by the wrong man for the wrong legal arguments by the wrong methods. Conservatives can and should support the right of posting the Ten Commandments, but they should distance themselves from Moore's particular example.

Three years ago, after first having seen him in full bizarro mode while making complicated legal arguments to the Mobile Register editorial board, I spent well over an hour alone with him in his local then-courtroom in Gadsden, Alabama, listening to him expound upon abstruse (but important) precepts of American law. In most respects, he is a conservative jurists' dream, one who takes seriously original intent and strict attention to constitutional and statutory text.

But he has this trick, a freak of memorization ability, that allows him to recite huge passages from memory. I'd raise an issue, and he'd respond with about 800 words of direct quotation from some obscure writing of James Madison. Another question would bring an equally long citation from the Bible or from an opinion by a federal district judge in Mobile. When asked for a copy of whatever document he was quoting from, he would quickly find it in one of the many books in his office, buzz his secretary, and ask her to Xerox it. The copy invariably proved his memory unerring.

Oddly, though, as he neared the end of every recitation, his cadence would speed up and the words become less distinct, somewhat like somebody on the 48th of a set of 50 Hail Marys. At least that was better than when under fire before the editorial board, when the words rantogethersofasthewouldsound as indecipherable as somebody speaking in tongues.

Clearly, this is a man whose sense of proportion is a bit on the freakish side.

In the matter of the Commandments, his original fame grew from a small and dignified wooden plaque he hung in his local courtroom. Conservatives were right to find it unremarkable and constitutionally acceptable, even praiseworthy. And the activist Left was foolish to make Judge Moore a hero by challenging the innocuous display.

But when he was elected chief justice by riding the earlier Ten Commandments flap like Ron Turcotte on Secretariat, it was clear that he was aiming for more widespread personal glory.

The 5,280-pound monument, placed in the state Judicial Building in the dead of night (with an evangelical camera crew to record it for posterity and a curious copyright stamp at its base, for what future commercial purpose isn't clear), is actually quite handsome — but so large and so prominent as to command attention. For federal courts that insist that the constitutionality of even quasi-religious displays depends in large part on their context and their intent, this monument clearly was pushing the envelope.

But Chief Justice Moore made matters worse. Rather than accept an offer from Gen. Pryor to have the state AG's office argue in favor of the Commandments on reasonable and responsible grounds, Moore insisted on hiring outside attorneys and on making sweeping and grandiose legal arguments sure to be rejected. No need for detailed legal quotations here. The upshot of Moore's court filings was twofold: first, that the monument did indeed carry what any rational person would call a specifically faith-centered message at least bordering on "establishment" of religion — namely, that it was "an acknowledgement of God" as the source of all justice; second, that he as chief justice of Alabama was personally not subject (at least in First Amendment cases) to the dictates of a federal court.

Furthermore, the chief justice failed on several occasions to file legal motions in a timely fashion. And he did not formally appeal the injunction to move the monument. In a letter to a state legislator, Gen. Pryor explained what happened next: "[Moore and his attorneys] belatedly asked the district court to stay its injunction ... The district court denied this request on the grounds that the injunction had not been appealed and that there was little, if any, likelihood that the petition for writ of mandamus or prohibition would be successful."

In short, Roy Moore orchestrated the entirety of last week's showdown so as to virtually guarantee the monument's removal and his own martyr's role in trying, supposedly valiantly, to stop the inevitable.

Make no mistake: Moore's mastery of media manipulation has made him a folk hero to at least a strong plurality, quite arguably a solid majority, of Alabamians. In doing so, he put other state officials in a political vise. Several state supreme-court justices are facing reelection next year; Gov. Bob Riley is waging an uphill battle for a tax-reform package; and Bill Pryor needs all the home-state support he can get (not to mention that of national conservative activist groups) if he has any hopes of having his judicial nomination brought to a vote.

Nonetheless, all the officials did their duty. Directly assisted by Pryor, the other justices unanimously overruled Moore and ordered the stone's removal. As Pryor explained: "I continue to believe that the Ten Commandments are the cornerstone of our legal heritage and can be displayed constitutionally as they are in the building of the Supreme Court of the United States... (But) the rule of law means that when courts resolve disputes, after all appeals and arguments, we all must obey the orders of those courts even when we disagree with those orders. The rule of law means that we can work to change the law but not to defy court orders."

Gov. Riley, while also insisting that a Ten Commandments display should be constitutionally acceptable, likewise added this: "Because we are a society of laws, the Alabama Supreme Court has a duty to comply with the federal court order, whether they agree with it or not. ... Attorney General Bill Pryor should be commended for showing similar resolve to ensure that the rule of law prevails in Alabama."

All of which, of course, once again gives the lie to the Senate Democrats' nasty smear that Pryor's "deeply held beliefs" would get in the way of him faithfully applying laws and precedents with which he disagrees. Pryor already has proven himself in that regard many times over, of course — but in this case he did it so courageously, while enraging so many of his core supporters, that he has exploded the last remaining shreds of his leftist critics' credibility.

The Washington Post editorialists, for instance — who have been particularly vicious toward Pryor — scored Pryor back on August 11 (before Chief Justice Moore announced that he would defy the court order) for having "not troubled himself to say a word in defense of the rule of law." Never mind, of course, that Moore had not yet given Pryor occasion to do so.

In a later editorial blasting Moore, the Post did note that Pryor had indeed refused to come to Moore's defense — but without acknowledging its own earlier error in questioning Pryor's integrity.

As of Friday afternoon, Moore had been suspended (with pay) from the bench, pending a trial before a state judicial ethics board. Pryor will have the unfortunate duty of prosecuting the case against him. There is little doubt that the AG will do so with vigor and honor — and little doubt that the Left will give him no credit for it, even as he further alienates his own base of support within Alabama.

Conservatives, therefore, should take two lessons from the Alabama Ten Commandments flap. First, they should specifically not make Moore a cause celebre. If they want the U.S. Supreme Court to allow courtroom displays of the Ten Commandments, the Alabama case is by far the weakest one they could possibly present to swing justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor.

Second, conservatives should rally even more strongly behind the federal appeals-court nomination of Bill Pryor, a man with the courage of his convictions, a marrow-deep respect for the rule of law, and an unfailing willingness to put his political interests aside in favor of his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution of these United States.
------------------

Interesting bit about Moore not appealing the injunction. That makes his motives a little more suspect, even though his motives don't necessarily impinge on the core issue at play here.

Goalie

 

[ChuteTheMall]

Thanks to Moore, Pryor gets to perform in public, instead of being just some name (not the Hispanic guy) on a list of candidates held up in committee. Pryor will be expected to defend the rule of law over personally held beliefs. If the media happens to cover Pryor's activities, pressure may grow to allow that up or down vote. Or at least to correct the Senate rules to require that filibusters be actually conducted on the floor and not part time like this current mess.

If topics like this were not allowed in this forum, they would be all over the site anyway. Better to confine them to one area like this where they don't get in the way of those who prefer to avoid them.

 

[CMichael]

I come to the High Road to read about and discuss issues relating to firearms. There are a number of forums on which discussions of church/state issues appropriate. This is not one of them.

Nobody is forcing you to read the threads you don't want to read. If you don't like the topic don't read it.

 

[jimpeel]

Seminole

I come to the High Road to read about and discuss issues relating to firearms. There are a number of forums on which discussions of church/state issues appropriate. This is not one of them.

Wrong. The only forum on THR that specifically restricts the thread discussions to firearms issues is the General Discussion forum which states:

Meet fellow forum members, find a common ground. Introduce new people to responsible firearm ownership. Posts must be related to firearms.

 

[Moparmike]

2 other threads have been closed on this topic, just wait for it.

A post of mine from another forum about this very issue:

I believe that if the Justice wants a monument on his front lawn (as long as it doesnt impede traffic, not a danger to others {like falling over}), that it is just fine. However, if he wants to put a symbol of religion infront of a public building on public grounds where the Government and the People are both represented and held accountable by laws, then I have a problem with it. I feel that it appears that the Alabama Supreme Court is attempting to advocate for and promote a religion. That is not acceptable. When people who can decide my fate start advocating beliefs and positions that are not written into the laws they use to decide my fate and the laws they enforce, beliefs and positions that unjustly affect the outcome of a decision, I feel that my right to a fair trial has been completely impeded. To sum up the above, Religion has no place in Justice. Justice can be served without the religious hangups. Ethics, morals, and legality can be decided without religion.

If the Justice believes that ALL our laws stem from the 10 commandments and the Bible, then he is due to start prosecuting people for non-government sanctioned religions, idolatry, coveting (read: ORWELLIAN THOUGHTCRIME), and others. I will never live in such a place as that. I will fight to remove said people who obviously have no clue as to current laws.

 

[Black92LX]

so what about the statues of the greek gods that aree on courts all around the nation. i guess we need to get rid of the too. ABSOLUTLEY NOT!!! Nothing is being forced upon anyone. no one is forcing it to be read or taken to heart.

 

[Graystar]

Nothing is being forced upon anyone.

I believe this is where you are wrong. When a judge refuses to obey the orders of a higher court because he believes his god to be the highest authority, then it is very possible that all judgements he has made as an officer of the court are tainted in the same way. In that case, religion *has* indeed been forced upon the people whose lives are affected by those judgements.

 

[Black92LX]

possible, but not necissarily the case.

 

[2dogs]

On the establishment of religion: What the Constitution really says

Alan Keyes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: August 26, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com


When he ordered the removal of the Ten Commandments monument from the Supreme Court building in Alabama, federal judge Myron Thompson stated that the issue at stake involved the question of whether or not the state has the right to acknowledge God.

Actually, this formulation is a distraction from the real issue, which is whether or not Myron Thompson or any other federal judge has the right to interfere with state actions that may or may not constitute an establishment of religion.

Someone who simply reads the text of the Constitution of the United States would be thoroughly surprised to learn that a federal judge claimed the right to act in this manner. The First Amendment to the Constitution plainly states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..." Since there can be no federal law on the subject, there appears to be no lawful basis for any element of the federal government – including the courts – to act in this area.

Moreover, the 10th Amendment to the Constitution plainly states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." This means that the power to make laws respecting an establishment of religion, having been explicitly withheld from the United States, is reserved to the states or to the people.

Taken together, therefore, the First and 10th Amendments reserve the power to address issues of religious establishment to the different states and their people.

An erroneous premise

Now, Judge Thompson – like many federal judges and justices before him – claims the unlimited prerogative of dictating to the states what they may or may not do with respect to matters of religious expression. Applying this supposed prerogative, he has declared the erection of the Ten Commandments monument by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the state of Alabama to be an unlawful establishment of religion.

This he has done despite the clear impossibility of any basis for his action in federal law or statute. He relies on the erroneous doctrine, repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, that the First Amendment forbids an establishment of religion, and that the 14th Amendment applies this prohibition to the states. Based on this assertion, he and other federal judges and justices now claim an unlimited right to dictate to the states in these matters.

We have already seen that the actual language of the Constitution does not forbid an establishment of religion. Rather, it forbids Congress to legislate on the subject at all, reserving it entirely to the states. No language in the 14th Amendment deals with this power of government.

Portions of that amendment do indeed restrict the legislative powers of the states, but they refer only to actions that affect the privileges, immunities, legal rights and equal legal status of individual citizens and persons. The first clause of the First Amendment in no way deals with persons, however, but rather – in concert with the 10th Amendment – secures the right of the states and the people to be free from the dictates of federal law respecting an establishment of religion.

Distinguishing rights of the people from individual rights

A right of the people as a whole – not an individual right – is the protected object of the first clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Even if one accepts the doctrine that the Bill of Rights must be taken as the basis for understanding the privileges and immunities of citizenship, the first clause of the First Amendment simply secures this right of the people, giving clear constitutional effect to their immunity from federal dictation in matters of religion.

The practical foundation of all the rights and privileges of the individual citizen is the rights that inhere in the citizen body as a whole, the rights of the people and of the state governments. The latter effectively embody their ability to resist abuses of national power. Such rights include the right to elect representatives, and to be governed by laws made and enforced through them. (The right to vote is an individual right. The right to elect is a right of the people as a whole.) Without these corporate and collective rights, there would be no mechanisms for the concerted action of the people, no institutions for their united defense and, therefore, no materially effective security for their individual persons, property and rights against the organized forces of an abusive national power.

The establishment clause of the First Amendment secures a right of the people. Until now, though, many have treated the first two clauses of the amendment as if they are one ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..."). This practice ignores both the linguistic and the logical contrast between the two clauses. Where the first clause deals with a right of the people (that is, a power of government reserved to the states and to the people), the second clause deals with an action or set of actions (the free exercise of religion) that cannot be free unless they originate in individual choice. The first clause forbids Congress to address a subject at all. The second allows for federal action, but restricts the character of such action.

By virtue of the first clause, the states and the people as such are protected from federal domination; by the second, individuals are protected from coercion in their religious conduct. The first clause allows the states and the people as such to follow their will in matters of religion; the second guarantees the same liberty to individuals and the corporate persons they voluntarily compose. The first has as its object matters that are decided by the will of the people (i.e., by the will of the constitutionally determined majority in the different states). The second involves matters decided by the will of each individual.

Parallel rights and actions

The failure to observe this distinction leads to the absurd presumption that all government action in matters of religion is somehow inherently a contravention of individual freedom. This can be no more or less true in matters of religion than it is in any other area in which both individuals and governments are capable of action and decision.

The government's power to arm soldiers for the community's defense does not inherently contravene the individual's right to arm himself against personal attack. The government's power to establish institutions of higher learning does not inherently contradict the individual's right to educate his young or join with others to start a school. The government's power to engage in economic enterprises (such as the postal service or electric power generation) does not inherently contradict the individual's right to private enterprise. It is possible for government coercively to inhibit or repress any of these individual activities, but it is obvious that government action does not in and of itself constitute such coercion.

As the U.S. Constitution is written, matters of religion fall into this category of parallel individual and governmental possibilities. Federal and state governments, in matters of religion, are forbidden to coerce or prohibit individual choice and action. Within the states, the people are free to decide by constitutional majority the nature and extent of the state's expression of religious belief.

This leaves individuals free to make their own choices with respect to religion, but it also secures the right of the people of the states to live under a government that reflects their religious inclination. As in all matters subject to the decision of the people, the choice of the people is not the choice of all, but of the majority, as constitutionally determined, in conformity with the principles of republican government (which the U.S. Constitution requires the people of each state to respect).

Subverting the wisdom of the Founders

The Constitution reflects the view that the choice with respect to governmental expressions of religious belief must respect the will of the majority. Unless, in matters that should be determined by the people, the will of the majority be consulted, there is no consent and therefore no legitimacy, in government.

Though it may be argued that matters of religion ought to be left entirely to individuals for decision, this has the effect of establishing in the public realm a regime of indifference to religion. Thus, a choice of establishment is inevitable, and the only question is whether the choice will be made by the will of the people or not. The U.S. Constitution, being wholly republican, decides this question in favor of the people, but in light of the pluralism of religious opinions among the people, forbids any attempt to discern the will of the people in the nation as a whole.

By leaving the decision to the people in their states, and by permitting a complete freedom of movement and migration among the states, the U.S. Constitution offers scope for the geographic expression of this pluralism while assuring that the absence of a formal and legal expression of religious reverence on a national scale does not inadvertently result in the establishment of a national regime of indifference to religion.

When, by their careless and contradictory abuse of the 14th Amendment, the federal judges and justices arrogate to themselves the power which, by the First and 10th Amendments, the Constitution reserves to the states, they deprive the nation of this prudent and logically balanced approach to the issue of religious establishment.

Whether through carelessness or an artful effort to deceive, they ignore the distinction between the individual right to free exercise of religion and the right of the people to decide their government's religious stance. They have, in consequence, usurped this right of the people, substituting for the republican approach adopted by the Constitution an oligarchic approach that reserves to a handful of un-elected individuals the power to impose on the entire nation a uniform stance on religion at every level of government.

The right to decide the issue of establishment is a fundamental right of the people. It is also among the most likely to cause bitter and passionate dissension when the religious conscience of the people is violated or suppressed. That may explain why it is the very first right secured from federal violation in the Bill of Rights.

When they take this right from the people, the federal judges and justices depart from the republican form of government. They impose, in religious matters, an oligarchic regime upon the states. They therefore violate, in letter and spirit, Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution. This section declares that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government ..."

Unlawful usurpation and lawful resistance

In addition to these abuses and violations of the U.S. Constitution, the purblind insistence by these judges and justices on treating religious freedom as a strictly individual right has produced the very consequence that the Constitution's more prudent approach seeks to avoid. They have insisted that government adopt a stance of strict agnosticism, which in effect drives from the public realm all things that smack of religious belief.

This establishes, in the literal sense, a uniform regime of atheism in government affairs. (In the literal sense, atheism simply means the absence of God, and this, in the public realm, is what the federal judges and justices insist upon.) Since, however unjustifiably, they claim for their opinions the force of law, it necessarily follows that they mean to impose this regime by force – that is, by coercion. Thus, in the guise of a judicial effort to protect religious freedom, they destroy it – not for this or that individual, but for the people as a whole.

Naturally, this destruction has aroused anxiety and opposition among the people, who feel and fear the effects of this wholesale suppression of public religious conscience and belief. With each new manifestation of the nature and intent of the federal judiciary's usurpation of their right, the people grow more resistant. Their acts of resistance against this judicial despotism reach higher and more organized levels until they are undertaken in and through the institutions of the state governments.

The state governments are the natural focus and vehicle through which the people organize and declare their opposition to unconstitutional assertions of federal power. Because the federal judiciary cloaks its usurpation in the usual forms and procedures of law, and because Americans are accustomed to taking those forms as evidence of substantive conformity with the law, these manifestations of resistance may be denounced as unlawful.

But in this case, the lack of lawful grounds for the federal judiciary's acts must, in the end, repel these denunciations. The federal judges and justices cannot be acting lawfully when their only claim of lawfulness rests upon the Constitution – since the Constitution's sole pronouncement on the matter of an establishment of religion precludes the possibility of any federal law as a basis for their jurisdiction.

Some may insist that regardless of anyone's opinion of the lawfulness of a court's action, all are duty-bound, in the interest of order and law enforcement, to obey every court order. This is certainly true of ordinary citizens in most circumstances. Even where ordinary citizens are concerned, however, it is not hard to imagine situations in which they would be morally obliged to refuse a plainly unlawful court order. If, for instance, a judge issues an order requiring that at random an innocent person be shot when entering the courtroom, no person, including any officers of the court, is required to obey this order. In fact, like military personnel, they are duty-bound to refuse.

What is imaginable for ordinary citizens is even more conceivable when dealing with high government officials who are sworn to uphold the constitutions and laws that establish self-government in the states, and that protect the liberties of individuals and of the people. If a federal judge orders the governor of a state to take actions that he conscientiously believes violate the rights of an individual or group of individuals, no one would deny that he is duty-bound to refuse such an order.

If, for example, a Nazi regime somehow came to power at the federal level, and by legislation or executive order initiated an effort to confine Jewish or black Americans to concentration camps, all state officials acting under state constitutions that protected individual rights would be oath-bound to refuse unlawful federal court orders that declared people to be of Jewish or black heritage and thereupon ordered their confinement.

What we clearly acknowledge to be possible and even morally obligatory in case of the violation of individual rights must be even more compelling when the case involves the violation of the rights of the whole people. Thus, when a federal judge issues an unlawful order that a state official conscientiously believes violates a fundamental and constitutionally protected right of the people of his state, that official must refuse the order that assaults their right just as he would refuse an order that violated the rights of individuals. It is of no consequence whether the unlawful order comes from one judge or many, from a lower court or the Supreme Court – it must be refused.

Note that the wording here implies an obligation, not a choice. This is important – since it makes clear that the court's unlawful order places the state official in a situation where his substantive duty to the law conflicts with his formal obligation to obey a court order. A regime in which slavish observance of the empty forms of law substitutes for substantive respect for the real terms and requirements of the law clearly represents the demise of law as such.

-----------cont'd next post

 

[2dogs]

---------cont'd from last post

Judge Moore and the people of Alabama

In the state of Alabama, Judge Roy Moore has refused the unlawful order of Judge Myron Thompson, since it represents a destructive violation of the right of the people of Alabama to decide how their government will or will not express their religious beliefs. This right of the people is the first one secured in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, and it cannot be compromised without surrendering the moral foundations of republican liberty. Judge Thompson's assault upon this right, and that of the entire federal judiciary for the last several decades, is not, therefore, a trivial threat to the liberty of the people. Judge Moore cannot obey the court's order without surrendering that liberty.

Now, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as it applies the Bill of Rights to the states, lays an obligation upon state legislatures, officers and officials to refrain from actions that deprive the people of their rights. With respect to the First Amendment, therefore, it becomes their positive obligation to resist federal encroachments that take away the right of the people to decide how their state governments deal with matters of religion. This obviously has a direct bearing on the case of Chief Justice Roy Moore in his confrontation with the abusive order of Judge Myron Thompson.

His refusal of the order is not only consistent with his duty to the Alabama Constitution, it is his duty under the Constitution of the United States. Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, the eight associate justices of the Alabama Supreme Court, and indeed any other state officials in Alabama who submit to the judge's order are, by contrast, in violation of the federal Constitution, as well as their duty to the constitution and people of Alabama.

As a class, therefore, the citizens of Alabama are justified in bringing suit against them for their dereliction, and in seeking reparation for the damage that has been done to their right under the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, since the federal judiciary is the perpetrator of the assault against this right, how can the people of Alabama hope for a fair and unbiased judgment from any of the federal courts, including the Supreme Court?

Judicial self-interest

Lawyers will doubtless object on the grounds that the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed the jurisdiction of the federal courts in this regard. Their partisan reverence for the Supreme Court's opinions on this matter is wholly understandable, since a seat upon the court, or upon the bench of one of the inferior federal courts, usually represents the highest point toward which their ambition aspires. It is quite natural that they should support claims to a power that they may hope someday to wield.

However, lawyers' insistence that others show the same reverence is repugnant to reason and common sense. In the matter of their constitutional jurisdiction, as against the state courts or the other branches of the federal government, the federal courts – including the Supreme Court – have a strong and direct interest. If judgment in these matters is left to them absolutely, it must always lead to a situation in which the judges and justices sit in judgment of their own cause.

Our common sense joins the admonitions of the Founders of our republic in warning us not to rely on such intrinsically biased judgments. The prospect of expanding their power may distract the federal judges from the facts and merits of the case. This is, and ever has been, a weakness of our humanity.

The people and their representatives

This is why the U.S. Constitution, after enumerating certain cases over which the federal judiciary would have original jurisdiction, gave it appellate jurisdiction "with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." Therefore, the federal courts are not the ultimate judges of the boundaries of their own power. Final responsibility in this respect rests with the Congress.

Once we take note of this fact, it also becomes clear that thinking about matters of jurisdiction at the constitutional level cannot be considered the exclusive province of lawyers and judges. Though Congress has in some historical periods been composed of a plurality, or even a majority of lawyers, lawyers could never have an exclusionary claim to membership in its ranks. The people can send to Congress whom they choose, including people from walks of life in no way related to the legal profession. It follows, therefore, that the Constitution assumes that people who are not lawyers will have to reason and make judgments about the proper scope and limits to be imposed upon the appellate jurisdiction of the federal courts.

The fact that the Supreme Court affirms the federal judiciary's claim to jurisdiction over the state governments in matters pertaining to an establishment of religion does not, therefore, settle the issue. The Congress must review and oversee such a claim. Since the people choose the members of Congress, people at large, as they consider their election, are required to consider this claim as well.

Our analysis thus far demonstrates that the Supreme Court's affirmation of this claim of jurisdiction is contrary to the plain text of the Constitution: It usurps the right of the people in their respective states to decide their government's stance on religion; it violates Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution by subverting the republican form of government with respect to this right; and by aiming coercively to establish an agnostic regime of atheism at all levels of government, it destroys religious freedom for the people as a whole and dangerously subverts the Constitution's prudent handling of matters pertaining to religion.

The right and duty of Congress

The text of the Constitution easily allows us to see and understand the federal judiciary's abuse of power and its usurpation of the right of the people in religious matters. It also provides a remedy for this abuse. The Congress must pass legislation that, in order to assure proper respect for the first clause of the First Amendment, excepts from the appellate jurisdiction of the federal courts those matters which, by the conjoint effect of the First and 10th Amendments, the Constitution reserves to the states respectively and to the people. (This language avoids a semantic difficulty, since congressional legislation that explicitly mentioned matters pertaining to an establishment of religion would serve the intention but violate the terms of the first clause of the First Amendment.)

This legislation would restore observance of the Constitution by preventing the federal courts from addressing any issues related to religious establishment (as the First Amendment requires), while leaving them free to deal with cases involving the free exercise of religion by individuals, since these do not fall under constitutional ban on federal legislation. In this regard, the only state actions that come under federal jurisdiction are those involving coercive interference with individual choice in matters of religion. State action that involves no such individual coercion (such as the placement of a Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of a state Supreme Court building) is outside the purview of the federal courts.

The consequences of congressional failure to act urgently upon this matter are almost too grave for contemplation. State officials will be continually beset by federal court judgments that demand action the U.S. Constitution forbids. Errors of judgment by federal officials seeking to enforce such orders might lead to confrontations between federal officers determined to do what federal judges order and state officers determined to do what the U.S. Constitution requires.

On one side and the other, claims of lawful justification would contribute to intransigence. Problems like this, left for very long without solution, raise the sombre spectre of national dissolution. This, the Congress has the constitutional means and duty to avoid. They should move to do so without delay.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34270

 

[Graystar]

Alan Keyes has no understanding of our rights nor of how those rights are preserved. Anyone who thinks that the only restrictions on goverment are those listed in the Bill Of Rights are as dangerous to liberty as those who believe our rights can be limited for the "good of the public."

 

[El Tejon]

Mr. Keyes, if reported correctly (always a big IF), has it inverted.

I wonder what the reaction in Ol' 'Bama would be if a Taji or a Buddha were put in the courthouse? I have a feeling they would not be there to support THAT.

 

[tiberius]

He's a zealot and if he lived 400 years ago, he'd probably be burning "witches".

I'm Christian, but if I wasn't I would be terrified to show up in this inquisition chamber.

Commandments 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 & 10 aren't even relevant in secular law. They are all religious or moral guidelines only. They would be laws if we were a theocratic state. That only leaves 3 commandments that have anything to do with a courthouse: Murder, theft and bearing false witness.

This "monument" has no place in a courthouse or legislature.

Moore may be a good person and he may have been a good judge at one time, but he certainly isn’t anymore. He should be impeached by whatever process available to the sane people Alabama.

 

[Dorrin79]

1st Amendment + 14th Amendment = no more TenCom Statue.

I wonder why people are always so quick to cry 'states rights' when it comes to authorizing government to do things it shouldn't?



look for Moore's forthcoming book "How I Tried To Save Alabama from the Godless Commies" in a store near you...

 

[CMichael]

Alan Keyes is right on target!!!

 

[Tamara]

The Ten Commandments:

1. Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:


2. For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:


3. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.



4. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib.


5. All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.


6. But the firstling of an ??? thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck.


7. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.


8. And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest.


9. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.


10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

I think these should be posted in the courthouse; it is important for every criminal to know that Judge Moore thinks they shouldn't seethe a kid in its mother's milk.

 

[ComputerFlake]

According to Yahoo! news, the monument is being moved at this very moment. Protestors are not sure to which room the monument is being moved nor if the momument will be available for public display after the move. What a sad state of affairs.

Seems to me whether you are Christian or not, you have to respect the 10 Commandments for several reasons. 1) It is the basis for your current law system whether you believe in God or not 2) it's one of the oldest sets of laws on written record 3) it's still just as usable today as it was 1000 years ago. You don't have to believe in God to respect the 10 Commandments. The Supreme Court was negligent in its duties to have ignored this issue.

 

[Intune]

1. Wrong.
2. Wrong.
3. Sure, if you're a Christian.


Keyes has a point regarding the federal intervention. However, the AL Supremes have ruled on this matter. Move along, there's nothing to see here folks.

 

[tiberius]

1) It is the basis for your current law system whether you believe in God or not

What?????

Where does this come from? Please reread the 10 commandments. They have nothing to do with US law and US law is not based on them at all. Only commandments 6,8 & 9 are even relevant in regards to US law.

 

[ComputerFlake]

I find it quaint how easily you dismiss a document just because you aren't a Christian. Regardless of your religious standpoint, the 10 Commandments have been around since about 1300BC, Moses and a depiction of the 10 Commandments appear in three different places in the Supreme Court, and our laws ARE based, in part, upon the 10 Commandments.

And if there is to be a TRUE separation of church and state, the state has no authority to rule on a church issue. Ever. They had no authority to rule on moving the 10 Commandments at all if they believed in 100% separation of chuch and state. At some point this is going to become a large issue in this country.