Ex-Justice Describes Commandments Fight (Moore's new book "So Help Me God"

[Khephra]

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore acknowledges having feelings of "doubt and fear" on the night of July 31, 2001, as he sat alone in his state courthouse office awaiting delivery of a Ten Commandments monument he wanted to install in the rotunda.

In a new book, "So Help Me God," Moore describes that night as the completion of a lifelong mission to use his position as the state's highest judge to publicly display a symbol of his religion.

It was also the beginning of a two-year fight that ended with Moore becoming the first chief justice in Alabama's history to be expelled from office after he refused a federal judge's order to remove the monument from the judicial building's rotunda. He appealed his ouster to the U.S. Supreme Court, but lost.

He says he knew that night there would be repercussions to installing the 5,200-pound granite monument in a public building and that news reporters and his fellow justices on the Alabama Supreme Court would question his motives. He said he knew that the monument "would be difficult for them to understand."

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/news/wire/sns-ap-ten-commandments-book,0,7330241.story?coll=sns-ap-entertainment-headlines

[Just Me]

1. This man needs to be educated about our country's founding,...

He must have barely passed Constitutional Law.

His extremist bent is completely antithetical to his own country.

Put the poor man on the right medications.

[LiberalFighter]

12. Don't have to know constitutional law to become a judge

[JDPriestly]

2. His opinions

Has anyone analyzed his opinions/decisions (if any are published) to see what he stands for other than installing a monument to the Ten Commandments in the courthouse? Is he otherwise a compassionate judge? Or is he business as usual, except for the Commandments issue?

[Mr_Spock]

3. That is an interesting thought - I wonder?

It's kinda moot though when you do something so completely outlandish and against the consitution of your country!

[Charlie Brown]

4. Non-Christians are not welcome in Judge Moore's courtroom

http://archive.aclu.org/news/w041197a.html

Apparently, these views are what got him elected to the Supreme Court.

[LiberalFighter]

13. Everytime he makes or implies that statement the attorney...

in the court should had immediately demanded that the judge be recused from the case because of his bias.

[OhioBlue]

5. It baffles me how the separation of church & state

is a controversial issue. I don't understand how it isn't understood as fundamental to our society.

Furthermore... it sickens me that he might be getting rich off of his "appearances" and "book deals" and I would guess posturing as a victim of the ACLU & "anti-God liberals" when he was the one committing the crime against our constitution. For him to have ANY creditability to his base he should be donating all profits from this to a charity.

[Inland]

6. Sort of like Jesus in Gethsemane. Except that Moore is a dickwad, that is

[CO Liberal]

7. Here's Something that Should Be Easy for Roy Moore to Understand

And I'll type it slow so that he can fully comprehend it:

Roy ... Moore ... is ... an ... idiot.

[fugue]

8. They're the wrong ten commandments anyway

Check the bible. The ones everyone touts are actually the first of two (possibly three) versions. See Exodus 20:2-17 (the first list, that is called the list). God only listed them to Moses; he didn't write them down. The stone tablets didn't come in until Exodus 31; I can't tell if the original ten commandments were on them or all the many ordinances listed between Exodus 20:17 and the end of Exodus 31 (including rules for selling your daughter into slavery).

In any case, whatever was on them, when Moses came down from the mountain and saw the Golden Calf, he smashed the tablets (why wasn't God peeved about that, hm?). So God gave him a new set of tablets, but this time Moses had to write them down. It took him forty days, so apparently God didn't give him anything with which to carve the stone. The final set of commandments (Exodus 34:13-26) is as follows:

1. Destroy the holy places of other religions and worship only God (whose name, by the way, is Jealous according to this passage). The holy places must be destroyed lest (gasp!) you should ever participate in their rituals (verses 13-16).


2. "You shall make for yourself no molten gods" (verse 17).


3. Observe Passover in the month of Abib (verse 18).


4. Sacrifice the firstlings of cows and sheep to God. In the place of an ass's firstling, you can sacrifice a lamb, but if you don't you have to break the baby ass's neck (verses 19-20).


5. Six days of work and one of rest. NB: It is not called the sabbath, and it is not consecrated to religious purposes. It is merely a day of rest (verse 21).


6. Three holidays are to be observed "the feast of weeks, the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feath of ingathering at the year's end" (verse 22).


7. During the three holidays listed in the previous commandment, all men shall "appear before the Lord God" (go to temple?) (verses 23-24).


8. "You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left until the morning." (Verse 25.)


9. "The first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God" (first half, verse 26.)


10. "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk" (second half, verse 26).

This biblical truth was first brought to my attention by http://www.ffrf.org, although this list I pulled from the bible myself.

So, when someone wants the ten commandments in a building, ask them do they want God's original or final draft.

[LiberalFighter]

14. God wrote a draft for his 10 commandments? WOW...

guess couldn't make up his mind what he wanted.

[fugue]

15. More than that!

God was so furious about the whole Golden Calf thing that he told Moses to leave so that he could "consume" the rest of the Israelites. Moses talked him out of it. "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people" (Exodus 32:14).

He repented, ladies and gentlemen? Why would a perfect being ever need to repent? That's for the imperfect ones like ourselves.

It makes me think of a quote I saw in Political Philosophy for Mortals by (I think) John Searles. Commenting on the crucifixion, he said, "So God sacrificed himself to himself to change his own mind. One would think he could've just saved us out of all that love he supposedly has for us."

[LiberalFighter]

16. Or why is it a Christian religion when it is suppose to be thee God

or why is the New Testament mostly written by Paul and worshipping based on his teachings.

[genieroze]

9. What a nut. eom

[young_at_heart]

10. His self-righteousness is unbelievable

I guess he thinks if only all buildings had the Ten Commandments the country would magically heal itself of evildoers!

[hollowdweller]

11. The peckerwoods who voted for him don't understand the complexity of

the church and state, they all listen to Rush and think Yee Haw! he's putting it to those liberals.