Roy Moore believes that “God put me here for a purpose and that one purpose is to acknowledge his law and his sovereignty.” He may be correct in his belief, and he’s entitled to act on it. Moore, however, thinks this mission is part of his responsibility not just as a Christian but as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. So no one was terribly surprised last summer when a 4-foot-tall, 5,300-pound granite block inscribed with the Ten Commandments appeared in the rotunda of the state judicial building.
But the monument will soon have to find new lodging. Last week, a federal district court said the monument was a violation of the 1st Amendment’s clause barring government endorsement of religion, and gave Moore 30 days to remove it.
How he will respond is anyone’s guess. He had the display installed even though it was clearly illegal. After the decision came down, he said, “I have no plans to remove the monument.” And at a rally last year, he declared that if the government “denies God, it should be abolished.”
But though this ruling may look to him like a rejection of God, it isn’t. It is instead a reminder that under our Constitution, affirmations of religious faith are the realm of individuals and organizations–not of government institutions. Judge Moore cites any number of quotations from the nation’s founders to buttress his claim that this republic is founded on “the sovereignty of God.” He overlooks the fact that when they drafted the Constitution, these men conspicuously omitted any mention of God.
Instead, they upheld freedom of religion, including the freedom to follow no faith, while forbidding “any law respecting an establishment of religion.” If they wanted to found the nation on belief in the Christian God, why would they ban any government support of churches–even so much as “threepence,” in the words of James Madison? Moore’s view is not just eccentric but preposterous.
It’s worth noting that the federal court that ruled against him didn’t say the Ten Commandments can’t be acknowledged by the courts as one of the sources from which our system of law evolved. Nor did it bar their display in government buildings: There is a depiction of Moses with the tablets on the east portico of the building that houses the U.S. Supreme Court.
“In each of these displays,” the district court said, “the Ten Commandments are situated in a secular context and the secular nature of the display is apparent and dominant.” By contrast, this monument “is nothing less than an obtrusive year-round religious display installed in the Alabama State Judicial Building in order to place the government’s weight behind an obvious effort to proselytize on behalf of a particular religion, the Chief Justice’s religion.”
If Moore wants to proselytize for his faith, he’s welcome to do so. But he should find a different way and a different place.
