On November 13, 2003, the Chief Justice of the State of Alabama, Roy Moore, stood before the Court of the Judiciary of the State of Alabama to hear the charges that he had been dismissed from his role as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for violating the canons of judicial ethics of his state. Specifically, Moore defied a court order to remove a two-and-a-half-ton Ten Commandments monument from the Rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court Building which had been placed there shortly after Moore became Chief Justice in 2001.

Moore maintained that the purpose of the monument was the state’s acknowledgment of God, an acknowledgment which Moore said the state was under obligation to obey. As a basis for this, Moore said that law must be predicated upon a moral foundation. For the original framers of the American republic, that foundation was Christian.

Still, what would compel Moore at the height of his legal career to risk that career to keep this monument in the state judicial building in defiance of a federal judge that told him to remove it?

In my last essay, I gave an overview of the events surrounding Moore’s controversial Ten Commandments monument, the firestorm that ensued, resulting in his dismissal from office. In this essay, I would like to consider those things that Roy Moore knew, things that were worth standing for, and, yes, worth losing a career over.

First, Roy Moore knows that he was under oath to support the Constitution, not judicial precedent. When a judge takes the oath of office, he takes that oath to support the Constitution “so help [him] God.” The judge’s allegiance is to a real document, a document from history that still binds us today. In a previous article, I highlighted the role of the judge to support the Constitution, and not to the opinions rendered by judges. A court opinion is not the law, but rather a statement about the law.

Moore understood as much when he refused to obey a court order to remove the Ten Commandments monument. He knew that at the end of the day he would have to ask himself whether or not he had upheld the Constitution as best he understood it.

In contrast, federal judge Myron Thompson, the judge that presided in Moore’s federal court trial, exalted the opinions of judges over the rule of law. In his opinion...

the court is strictly bound by Supreme Court precedent; only that Court has the ability to overturn its previous decisions. [1]

Apparently, Thompson thinks that the precedents of the Court and the United States Constitution are the same. If Thompson is right, if the Constitution is nothing more than the scribbling of legal scholars, then we are no longer under the rule of law. Judge Moore understood as much.

Let the truth be told: both Judge Moore and Judge Thompson did not take an oath to uphold the opinions of legal scholars. They both took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States as written.

Second, Roy Moore knows that the judiciary has overstepped its bounds. Much has been written recently about judicial activism, the tendency of American courts to go beyond merely interpreting law to making the law from the bench, via court orders and court opinions. In the case against Roy Moore, judicial activism has been manifest in the court’s rejection of the sovereignty of God over our government and the court’s casual dismissal of the framer’s Constitution.

Roy Moore knows what most Americans know: that America is a nation under God. Our national motto is “In God We Trust” but you wouldn’t know it from listening to the pronouncements of magistrates like Judge Thompson. Contrary to the claims of groups like the ACLU, the idea that America is a nation under God is not prohibited by the Constitution: rather it is one that is the foundation of law. In the federal court trial against Roy Moore (Glassroth v. Moore [2002]) both Moore and Thompson agreed that the principal issue in Moore’s case was not the monument itself, but rather whether or not the state had an obligation to acknowledge God. Moore said that it did; however, Thompson disagreed:

By adopting, as a matter of law, the view that the Judeo-Christian God is the authority behind the First Amendment, the state would also be embracing a particular religion, again in complete violation of the Establishment Clause. [2]

How is it that the Constitution can be in conflict with the Declaration of Independence which acknowledges God? The acknowledgement of God is not a violation of the Establishment Clause, but only a violation on the ACLU’s take on role of religion in America.

The acknowledgement that God is the ruler of the nations is the most important belief to curtailing the power of the state. It is no coincidence that the most abusive regimes in our recent memory have been those regimes that have sought to remove God’s sovereignty over the nations. When God is gone, you are left with state power to do as it pleases, only to be limited by another state and its power. In the words of Robert Winthrop, man must be ruled “either by the Bible, or by the bayonet.”

Finally, in the end, Moore knew that he was right. Today, we need men that know what is right and will stand on it. Moore is such a man. He has proven that he is willing to take on an entire court system and say what is wrong and what needs to be changed. Moore stands in the great tradition of our founders that knew that if a rule is immoral, you don’t obey it. I believe that Moore would have sat in an Alabama jail rather than break his oath. We need more judges and lawyers to oppose judicial tyranny while liberty is still our portion.

Sources

[1] 229 F. Supp. 2d 1067 (M.D. Ala. 2002). http://www.morallaw.org/PDF/glsrthmre111802opn.pdf.

[2] 229 F. Supp. 2d 1067 (M.D. Ala. 2002). http://www.morallaw.org/PDF/glsrthmre111802opn.pdf.