Appeals court tells Ten Commandments judge, ‘Thou shalt not’ _71403

Posted: 7/11/03

Appeals court tells Ten Commandments
judge, 'Thou shalt not'

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)–The “Ten Commandments Judge” had better follow the commandment of the Constitution and remove his monument from the Alabama state judicial building, a federal appeals court said July 1.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's installation of a 5,280-pound Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of the state judicial building violates the First Amendment's prohibition of state support for religion. They upheld a lower federal court's ruling that the monument must be removed, although the appeals court did not impose a timetable for its removal.

The court vehemently rejected Moore's argument that the federal courts have no authority in the matter because he is sworn to uphold both the Alabama and federal constitutions. Moore argued that both documents acknowledge God.

The court likened Moore's argument to similar arguments by segregationist Southern governors in the 1950s and 1960s in their attempts to defy federal court orders integrating schools and other public facilities.

After noting that former Alabama Gov. George Wallace and former Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett ultimately were forced to obey federal decrees, Judge Ed Carnes wrote in the court's opinion, “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.”

Carnes went on to say bluntly that Moore would not be allowed to defy federal courts.

“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,” Carnes concluded.

Moore had the monument placed in the building in the middle of the night July 31, 2001, without the knowledge or consent of his fellow justices. It stands by itself at the center of the building's main public space, and Carnes noted in his opinion that visitors and employees sometimes kneel in prayer before the monument, as if the room were a chapel.

Inscribed across the top of the monument is the Protestant King James translation of the commandments. The court's opinion took special note that different religious traditions–including different traditions within Christianity itself–have different ways of translating and arranging the Exodus passages from which the commandments are drawn. Therefore, the court said, it was difficult to view the sculpture as anything but an endorsement of Protestant Christianity.

The judges also said the monument failed another test of constitutionality–whether the state, as represented by Moore, had a secular purpose in erecting it. The court relied, as had the lower court, on Moore's own words both in court testimony and in a speech he gave at the monument's unveiling, to show he did not have a secular purpose in mind when he made the decision to place the monument in the building.

Privately raised funds paid for the sculpture, but Moore allowed a film crew from Coral Ridge Ministries–the Religious Right organization run by Florida-based televangelist James Kennedy–to tape footage of the monument's construction and installation. Coral Ridge later sold the videotape as a fund raiser and has paid for Moore's legal defense.

Moore has said he acted secretly to protect his fellow justices from being named in the lawsuit he was certain would result from his actions.