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