September (Web-only) 2003

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In April President Bush nominated Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor for a seat on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Since then Pryor, 41, an outspoken opponent of abortion, has found himself under attack from the left and the right.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in June sharply questioned Pryor about whether he could set aside his deeply held religious beliefs and apply the law fairly. Although Pryor, a staunch Roman Catholic, said he could, Senate Democrats set up a filibuster to deny him a vote for confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Although agreeing with Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore that Moore's 5,280-pound Ten Commandments monument could legally remain in the state judicial building, in August, following a ruling by the same 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Pryor ordered it removed from public view. Some defenders of the monument lashed out at Pryor, calling for his resignation. Moore, meanwhile, was suspended from his office for disobeying a judge's order.

Stan Guthrie, Christianity Today's associate news editor, interviewed Pryor.

Why didn't you support Judge Moore on the Ten Commandments controversy?

I have long supported displays of the Ten Commandments as a source of our laws. I have explained on many occasions that I think the Ten Commandments are the cornerstone of our legal heritage and can be displayed constitutionally, as they are in the U.S. Supreme Court building. When the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Chief Justice Moore and the case came back to the district court and an injunction was issued without any kind of stay of that injunction, it is my position that whether we agree with that order or not, as public officials, we have an obligation to follow the ...