November (Web-only) 2002

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Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore loses Ten Commandments case
It's not whether the Ten Commandments are posted in a courthouse that matters, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled yesterday in an eagerly awaited decision. It's how they're posted.

"The court does not hold that it is improper in all instances to display the Ten Commandments in government buildings; nor does the court hold that the Ten Commandments are not important, if not one of the most important, sources of American law," Thompson wrote (PDF | Word | WordPerfect). "Rather the court's limited holding … is that the Chief Justice's actions and intentions in this case crossed the Establishment Clause line between the permissible and the impermissible."

The evidence that the line was crossed is overwhelming, Thompson's very readable ruling says. "No other Ten Commandments display represents such an extreme case of religious acknowledgment, endorsement and even proselytization. In other words, if there is a Ten Commandments display tradition in this country, it is definitely not the tradition embodied by the chief justice's monument."

Moore's 5,300-pound granite display, which he brought into the judicial building secretly after he was named chief justice, "is nothing less than an obtrusive year-round religious display installed … 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," Thompson said. "The only way to miss the religious or nonsecular appearance of the monument would be to walk through the Alabama State Judicial Building with one's eyes closed."

Moore didn't even bother to hide his religious intent, Thompson wrote: "The Ten Commandments monument, as the Chief ...