Judge Moore and the Ten Commandments
More than ten years have passed since the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Judge Roy Moore, was removed from office essentially because he had announced his intention to defy a federal court order, which required him to remove a large stone monument from the Alabama Supreme Court building. Moore had designed it and had ordered it installed. Quotations from the Declaration of Independence, various founding fathers, and the national anthem were carved into the granite. The monument also depicted two tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments.
While in private practice in the late 1980's Moore had adorned his office with a wooden plaque of the Ten Commandments, which he had carved himself. When he became an Alabama circuit judge in 1992, he hung that plaque in his courtroom behind his bench. In 1996 the ACLU filed a lawsuit. The course of that litigation was complicated, but Moore prevailed and the plaque remained.
The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court is elected, not appointed. After a close primary race, Moore won the general election handily and was sworn in on January 15, 2001. He decided immediately that the dignity of the Supreme Court building required something more than his simple wooden plaque. The granite monument was placed in the central rotunda at the end of July 2001.
Three month later ACLU, joined by many other groups, filed suit in the United States District Court. The litigation was again complex. When the dust settled in the summer of 2003, Moore had been removed from office. The monument was removed soon after.
Certainly Judge Moore expected the legal challenge. I have often wished he had planned his campaign differently. I wish he had forced the federal courts to go further onto uncomfortable ground. Perhaps granite was a more suitable material for the Supreme Court building, but what if Moore had stayed with a small wall mounted plaque? What if it said nothing more than, "Do not testify falsely"? What opponents would then have come forth? A month later, another plaque might appear on the rotunda walls, this time exhorting, "Do not steal". After another month, "You shall do no murder," might have been ventured. No doubt Moore would have had the ACLU watching carefully, but what sort of complaint could be filed against him? "Honor your father and your mother" would increase the pressure. "Do not commit adultery," would have caused a stir, but what else? Had ten such plaques been affixed to the rotunda walls, the case surely would have come before the federal courts. There can be no doubt the federal courts would order the removal of "Hear O Israel! The Lord Thy God is One God . . . ", and little doubt about a few others. I would have loved reading any federal decision which had to address the ten plaques each in turn.
