Thursday, August 07, 2003

For those who are interested in the television pundit shows, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is scheduled to appear on Hannity and Colmes tonight on Fox News.

If you are unfamiliar with him, Judge Moore (who is a Christian) installed a 2 1/2 ton granite monument in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building depicting the Ten Commandments, which are, of course, the basis for all law. Needless to say, militant secularists were crawling all over one another to sue him (mostly the usual suspects: the ACLU, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, etc.), and a federal appeals court recently ruled that Judge Moore must remove the monument. Though Moore is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit court this week lifted a stay, and ordered the monument removed by August 20.

It could get very interesting, because Chief Justice Moore is enormously popular in the state of Alabama (whose people elected him to his current positon after a similar dispute when he was a lower court judge), the governor is on his side, and he has shown no inclination to remove the monument whatever the ruling.

I've had some firsthand experience with the enormous personal appeal of Judge Moore, and his enemies are making a huge mistake if they underestimate him. He appeals to people on a very gut level, and also brings some refreshing, long-overdue Constitutional argumentation to the table. While too many Christians have tried to play within the boundaries set by liberal, activist courts (i.e. trying to prove that whatever it is that they want to do fits within the court-imposed "Lemon test," for instance), Moore is challenging the entire edifice that the liberal innovations have been built upon. He doesn't try to play by the Lemon test--he rejects the Lemon test. It's his postion that the federal courts have no jurisdiction in the matter, let alone any authority to force him to disobey the Alabama state constitution, which invokes "the favor and guidance of Almighty God" to "ordain and establish the...Constitution and form of government for the State of Alabama."

The militant secularists hate him in a way they hate few others, a fact which becomes evident in any Google search on his name. They know that this is a strategic case. There could be a lot riding on this, and Chief Justice Moore might just be the right man to stand for truth in the coming tumultuous days.

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