[Mb-civic] Part II: Hang Ten and Fight!

[Michael Butler]

    This is part 2 of a 5-part series.

        Part I: The Lure of Christian Nationalism
        Part II: Hang Ten and Fight!

    America's Religious Right - Saints or Subversives?
    By Steve Weissman
    t r u t h o u t | Investigation

    Part II: Hang Ten and Fight!

  

  

    Friday 15 April 2005

    Judge Roy Moore knows how to rally the troops, especially among
right-wing Christian evangelicals. A devout Southern Baptist, he tells them
what they want to hear, as he did in early 2002 to a gathering in Tennessee:

    Since September 11, we have been at war. I submit to you there is
another war raging - a war between good and evil, between right and wrong.
For 40 years we have wandered like the children of Israel. In homes and
schools across our land, it's time for Christians to take a stand. This is
not a nation established on the principles of Buddha or Hinduism. Our faith
is not Islam. What we follow is not the Koran but the Bible. This is a
Christian nation.

    
Judge Roy Moore and his monument to the Ten Commandments.
    
    A West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, Moore also knows how to pick
his weapon - the iconic Ten Commandments, which he has honed over long years
into a popular organizing tool and a potentially winning issue.

    Moore began his campaign back in the early 1990s. As a local judge in
Alabama's Etowah County, he put a small wooden display of the Ten
Commandments in his courtroom and opened his judicial sittings with prayer.
The American Civil Liberties Union took legal action to stop him, and the
state courts eventually dismissed the case over a question of legal
standing.

    But, even as the wheels of justice turned, politics quickly took hold.
Alabama Governor Fob James Jr. loudly threatened to send in the National
Guard if federal authorities tried to remove the Ten Commandments from
Moore's courtroom.

    The US House of Representatives voted 295-125 to support the right of
public officials to display copies of the Ten Commandments, which - said
Congress - are "fundamental principles that are the cornerstone of a fair
and just society."

    And in the 2000 election campaign, George W. Bush proposed that a
"standard version" of the Ten Commandments be posted in schools and other
public places. "I have no problem with the Ten Commandments posted on the
wall of every public place," he told reporters.

    In the arcane world where religious militants become political
organizers, evangelical Christians and others all over the country escalated
their long-term fight to bring back school prayer and encourage the official
display of the Ten Commandments. Moore had found his signature issue, and
gained growing fame throughout Alabama and across the nation as the "Ten
Commandments Judge."

    
    
Judge Roy Moore, the "Ten Commandments Judge."
    Elected Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court in 2000, he set out to
amplify what he considered to be his Godly crusade. On his own authority, at
his own expense, and in the dead of night, he installed a 5,280-pound
granite monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the state
Judicial Center. He unveiled his Biblical assault vehicle in August 2001,
announcing his purpose as clearly as he could:

    May this day mark the beginning of the restoration of the moral
foundation of law to our people and a return to the knowledge of God in our
land.

    Not everyone agreed.

    "This is a monumental violation of the US Constitution," countered the
Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of
Church and State. "The Ten Commandments is a religious code, and should not
be promoted by the government - Moore is obviously working tirelessly to use
the government to promote religion."

    Together with the Southern Poverty Law Center and Alabama ACLU,
Americans United took Moore to federal court, where they won both at trial
and on appeal. The federal judges had no problem seeing the monument as an
attempt by a state official to promote his particular religious beliefs in
direct violation of the First Amendment and its prohibition against any
establishment of religion.

    District Court Judge Myron Thompson then ordered Moore to remove the
monument, and - true to his cause - Moore refused. Where Alabama Governor
George C. Wallace had once stood in the schoolhouse door to keep black
children out, the state's chief justice was now standing in the courthouse
door fighting to keep God in.

    "A federal judge has no right to come in the state of Alabama and say we
cannot acknowledge God," said Moore. "It's indeed an intrusion into our
state sovereignty."

    Moore launched several more legal appeals, including to the US Supreme
Court, which refused to hear his case. "God is sovereign," he replied, "and
shall remain so despite what the Supreme Court and federal district courts
of this land say."

    Finally ousted from office for refusing to obey a federal court order,
Moore now leads in public opinion polls as the favorite among GOP voters to
become Alabama's next governor. And he has turned the Ten Commandments into
a potent battle flag, as he and his fellow evangelicals launch a new
offensive against the independence of federal judges and the separation of
church and state.

    They could win, not the least because the Ten Commandments have
political appeal. Even non-evangelicals often agree with Moore when he
presents the Ten as the basis of American law. Clearly, his history needs
help. A longtime lawyer, he should know that English common law provides the
foundation of our legal system, and - as Thomas Jefferson pointed out to a
friend in 1814 - the common law began in England well before Christianity
took hold. In Jefferson's word, "Christianity neither is, nor ever was a
part of the common law."

    According to the polls, most Americans see the Ten Commandments more as
a cherished symbol of universal morality than as a statement of religious
belief. Yet, in repeated tests, few seem to know very much about them - or
about the religious and political conflicts they inevitably invite.

    To begin with, they resonate mostly with Jews and Christians, and - to a
limited degree - with Muslims. They largely exclude Americans who follow
other religious traditions, such as Buddhists and Hindus. They also exclude
a growing number of pagans, polytheists, and non-believers, such as myself.

    Even more troubling, the Old Testament itself includes three different
versions of the Decalogue - two in the book of Exodus at Chapters 20 and 34,
another in Deuteronomy. All together, they offer many more commandments than
the ten we see in most representations.

    Different religious groups use different combinations. Most Protestant
denominations include "Thou Shalt Not Make Graven Images." Catholics and
Lutherans never mention graven images, which has fueled a long history of
bitter anti-Catholic attacks from many Christian evangelicals.

    Jews have a different set, with an entirely different first commandment,
which is more an affirmation of belief: "I am the Lord thy God, Who brought
thee out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage."

    In his monument, Judge Moore attempted to produce a Judeo-Protestant
version, which has given him eleven commandments rather than just ten.

    Depending on the version, several of the commandments are undeniably
religious:

    I Am the Lord Thy God . (an affirmation of a deity)
    Thou Shalt Not Have Any Gods Before Me (a step toward monotheism)
    Thou Shalt Not Make Graven Images
    Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord in Vain
    Remember the Sabbath, Keep It Holy

    Even the ban on adultery, which might include homosexual relations, has
different meanings to different religious groups. Some, on the fringe, have
called for making adultery and other transgressions capital offenses.

    In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers foresaw the conflicts that
government involvement in such questions would bring. Which is why, despite
their personal religious convictions, they set out to keep God and
government out of each other's way.

    Over succeeding generations, religious believers like Judge Moore have
slowly broken through the wall of separation, as during the Cold War
hysteria of the 1950s, when Congress put the words "under God" in the Pledge
of Allegiance and made "In God We Trust" the national motto. Each succeeding
generation of militants then uses the earlier breakthroughs to justify far
more, all in pursuit of what Judge Moore call "a Christian nation."

    But not all believers go along. Writing to the Huntsville Times, a
reader who described himself as "a Conservative Christian" summed up his
feelings in pointed terms:

    Moore indicates to me that, while a devout Christian, in essence he
would like his religion to be the state religion of Alabama, his religious
interpretations accepted as the norm and his monument reflecting his
religious beliefs placed in a public building.

    Moore was, said the believer, "just another ayatollah wearing Christian
garb instead of Muslim."

    A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly
Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a
magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France,
where he writes for t r u t h o u t.