posted
Thing is, I can't really bust on him for defying the rulings, since the other big judge news story is the number of judges that have been quietly and not-so-quietly defying the federal government's sentencing guidelines by purposely lowering the sentence in cases where they felt the federal guidelines were too harsh. From what I've read of the situation I approve of their actions.
If a person, even an official, believes that a rule or law is unjust, shouldn't they work against it? The fact that I think Moore is in the wrong on the Ten Commandments display doesn't mean I think he should be forbidden from speaking out, as long as he's willing to accept the consequences of his actions.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Yeah katharina, I'm looking for attention just like those African Americans who needed federal troop help to go to school in Arkansas because the local court/legislature and mayor/governor's office was "upholding the will of the majority."
Perhaps you should stop with the nasty condescending rhetoric Katharania, if you don't agree with something I say, you can easily respond politely or not at all to it.
I don't care if a local/state majority of people support something, as long as its unconstitutional and the state is willfully disobeying the federal government's just authority, I say let the troops scatter that statue all over their Capitol steps.
After all, this is a federal building, and I refuse, as a tax payer, to fund the housing of some religious monument or the salaries of people who have to work arround such a thing.
If Alabama wants to start meshing religious icons and texts with state, I suggest they get an Amendment passed. Until then, the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land. This is one issue where federalism is very clear that the states and the localities do not have the power to do this kind of thing, ESPECIALLY in a federal building.
[ August 15, 2003, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: Duragon C. Mikado ]
Posts: 622 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Chris: there are a couple crucial differences between violating federal sentencing guidelines and keeping the ten commandments up. The first is completely legal and firmly grounded in american legal tradition.
The second is a violation of a court order (though I think he may have gotten a stay, making it not illegal) and a violation of a firmly grounded legal tradition.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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In my old high school, a bunch of wacky religious nuts paid to put up a "historical display" that included documents like the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and, front-and-center, the Ten Commandments.
No one was fooled by the "historical" crap; everyone knew it was there as a smokescreen.
Even still, a few of us lobbied successfully to get the right to put other significant religious and legal documents posted on the same board. We brought in the 12 Principles of the Baha'i Faith, the Magna Carta, and a condensed version of the Code of Hammurabi -- identified in the text as predating the Ten Commandments.
No one was surprised when, in response, the original wacky religious group took their board down and went home. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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"They have the audacity to come into our court and say we have to remove the foundation of our law, which is the Ten Commandments." -Moore
This is the problem with electing judges. You get raving, beefwitted ideologues like this who lack any respect for the rule of law or the Constitution. This jackass actually called the Ten Commandments the foundation of American law? Perhaps he isn't familar with, oh, say, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. This wingnut has no place on the bench. He must know full well that by pursuing this to the supreme court, he is seeking to overturn Lemon v. Kurtzman. This precident established the so-called "Lemon Test" for determining if something violates the establishment clause.
The US has arguably the best constitution of any nation on earth, it's a shame so many Americans are so eager to destroy its relevance to law. In Canada, our constitution is laughably weak in comparison, and barely over two decades old. However, because we have a greater degree of judicial independance and they are selected for impartiality above all else, our judges can focus on interpreting the law and constituion, and applying it fairly.
Posts: 1769 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Fugu, how dare you spread those lies. Thank the Almighty Christian God you have Ashcroft there to protect you by keeping tabs on traitorous liberal judges who dare to challenge the authority of Congress with their evil downward departures toward anarchy, sin and HELL!
Posts: 1769 | Registered: Feb 2000
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This is a very interesting discussion. I can see validity to points on both sides. Of course being very conservative and the other religious-based beliefs I have its hard to figure out what is really the "right thing". I'll have to give it some more thought now that I've been able to read some opposing viewpoints...
Posts: 1132 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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posted
fugu, he hasn't gotten a stay yet. He tried with the Federal Appeals Court twice yesterday and they turned him down both times. Now he's filed for an emergency stay with the SC. (Kennedy is the Justice in his district.)
quote:------------------------------------------ What I want to know is why can the SCOTUS have the ten commandments posted in their courtroom and this guy can't? -------------------------------------------------
Is that all they display?
Found the answer to my question. On the way of the Supreme Court is a frieze, which contains the image of Moses with the ten Commandments, along with depictions of Confucius, Mohammed, Caesar Augustus, William Blackstone, Napoleon Bonaparte, and John Marshall. Justice Stevens has stated that the placement of all of these historic figures together on the frieze signals a respect for great lawgivers, not great proselytizers.
So that's why the Supreme Court can have it and still ban it elsewhere.
Wonder if Moore would be willing to put equally-sized monuments to all those other sources of law alongside his?
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Because I know y'all are dying to know the outcome. . .
quote: WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from an Alabama judicial building, rejecting a last-minute appeal from the judge who installed the display.
quote: The Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of such indoor and outdoor government displays. In 1980, the court barred Ten Commandments from classroom walls in public schools.
The justices' refusal to intervene was not a surprise. An appeals court had twice refused to give Moore a stay.
"It's not like somebody's about to face execution, if the court doesn't enter a stay the person will be dead and the appeal will be moot," said David Frederick, a Washington attorney who specializes in Supreme Court practice. "If the Supreme Court were to decide it's constitutional, it can always be put back."
quote: Moore has already asked the Supreme Court to consider whether the judge overstepped his bounds in the case, and a second appeal in the Ten Commandments case is expected. Those could take months to resolve.
So, the emergency stay wasn't granted, but it seems that there is another appeal in the system already. Am I reading that correctly?
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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On an extreme note: There is the practice of The Lords Liberation Army which has been waging a 17 year war against the secular government of Uganda.
The routinely capture childen ages 11 and up and either turn them into rewards for the officers, or soldiers.
Why? To promote thier theocracy. To create a government based on thier religious views.
What bizzare sick religious views would condone such treatment of children, war and murder, rape and destruction?
Why,they are basing it off of the 10 Commandments.
Maybe we should ship our Alabama judge to serve in Uganda.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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So, what is involved in getting permission to erect a statue like this 10 commandments momument on government property?
Rather than fight these protesters and remove the existing sculpture, why not just add a whole pile of equally prominent monuments to some of the other roots of our legal code? Something like a version of the modifications Tom's classmates made to the fundamentalist Christians' board at his school, but in stone. How much would something like this cost? I'd be willing to donate toward it. Is there any kind of movement to solve the problem in this way that just hasn't been picked up by the national media?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I think we should have two sets of laws in this country. For everyone who wants the country's laws to be Biblical, they can sign a paper saying so. You basically opt to be treated as outlined in Leviticus, if that's what you want. You still have to obey all the other laws in effect for your state, but if you violate one of the Levitical laws, the rest of us get to stone you, or make you go through ritual purification, or whatever that law dictates for your particular crime.
Everyone else can live their lives just under the laws passed by our elected representatives or added to our Federal and state constitutions.
Seems like a win-win situation to me.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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Bob if I sign up does that mean that I: A) Get to have slaves? B) Get to marry my brothers wife when he dies? C) Can have more than one wife and several concubines? D) If I rape a woman, but stop her from screaming, or from her screams being heard, does that mean its not rape?
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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BTW, Several groups have attempted to put other monuments alongside Moore's 10C, but Moore has blocked them.
Apparently, the only way to get a monument in is to do it the way Moore did: Bring it in at 2 o'clock in the morning, while no one, is looking.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Dan- One funny law of the Bible says that if you rape a virgin, you must pay her father twenty shekels and marry her or something like that. That makes excited to be a girl, let me tell you.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote: MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended by a judicial ethics panel Friday for his refusal to obey a federal court order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building rotunda
posted
I'm not sure why so many Christians are so concerned that the government doesn't overtly sponsor their idealogy. Like if the nation isn't entirely about Christianty, it is doomed to burn in the apocalypse. Christianity STARTED as a rebellious upstart in a highly anti-Christian society. It thrived that way in spite of persecution. And now they think they have to BE the establishment? Aren't they concerned that they are turning into the very people who used to feed them to lions?
If the ten commandments monument had been a holdover from an earlier time, or simply an innocent gesture, I would totally be defending it. People make way too big a deal about the "harm" done by simply displaying a symbol of some particular culture or creed.
Since the dude clearly did it to be inflammatory, I think it's stupid, and should go away.
So everyone is being ridiculous, and I'd really like to live in a country where people tolerated one another, on both sides.
By the way, Christmas trees have virtually no connection with Christian doctrine or history. They're part of an older European tradition that was adopted by Christians, and there is no harm whatsoever with the government festively joining in, in harmless ways, with a holiday that involves the majority of the nation's population, either religiously or culturally, or both. Being a Christian of European descent isn't part of being an American, but at the moment, being SURROUNDED by them is. Sorry, there just happen to be LOTS of Christians here, and as a result, placing Christmas trees around in the winter is going to be a huge part of American culture. Whether you do it or not, and whether government buildings do it or not, you're going to see it freaking EVERYwhere. Can't we just pretend to be friendly about it?
And in the meantime, I wouldn't mind a few government-placed menorahs, either
posted
Oh man, if wieczorek sees that post, he's going to wet his pants.
Geoff, I agree with you, simply because of the fact that "In God We Trust" on the money has "no secular meaning." It doesn't pass the sniff test, but what the heck. That's they way they ruled. And I suppose that one could say that Christmas trees are secular, but I don't see many Jewish/Muslim homes with Christmas trees up around the holiday, so I think that argument also fails the sniff test. Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Whereas: The unique features of this nation at its foundation was its establishment of a secular Constitution that separated government from religion – something never done before; and
Whereas: Our secular constitution has enabled people of all world views to coexist in harmony, undivided by sectarian strife; and
Whereas: President James Madison made clear the importance of maintaining this harmony when he said, “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the endless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries”; and
Whereas: The diversity of our people requires mutual respect and equal protection for all our citizens, including minority groups, if we are to remain “One nation, indivisible”; and
Whereas: It is the unfettered diversity of ideas and world views that have made our nation the strongest and most productive in the world; and
Whereas: Eternal vigilance must be maintained to guard against those who seek to stifle ideas, establish a narrow orthodoxy, and divide our nation along arbitrary lines of race, ethnicity, and religious belief or non-belief.
Now Therefore, I, Jesse Ventura, Governor of Minnesota, do hereby proclaim that Thursday July 4, 2002 shall be observed as: Indivisible Day In the State of Minnesota.
posted
What many fail to realize is that "freedom of religion" for everyone necessarily implies "freedom from other peoples religion".
I think its worthy of note that of all the countries of European origin, the US has by far the most religious population and by far the strictest laws separating church and state. I don't think thats a coincidence. By pushing to blur the line between church and state, these people are more likely to drive the average american toward secularism than anything else.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Yet another irony, The second of the 10 commanments forbids the making of images of anything found in the sky, earth or sea. If taken literally (and I recognize that most Judeo/Christian groups don't) the supreme court is breaking the 10 commandments by displaying a statue of Moses holding the 10 commandments.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
I am waiting for some someone to push for the Bible to be used as the standard for a state's legal system. I mean, that's basically the purpose of what Moore is doing, isn't it? Isn't that the goal of the Pat Robertson's and the like? To 'restore' the Bible to its 'rightful' place in the American consciousness?
Geoffrey, you speak of tolerance for what people are doing and just look at what Moore is doing as some kind of annoying tantrum, like someone farting in a crowded elevator. Yet, I think this monument represents a movement to remove secularism from government, and in its place put religious thought. I say this because this is what you hear Christian conservatives say THEY want. Put God back in schools. Put God back in society. Put God back in marriage. Put God back in government.
The monument is not just some bold statement about Moore's personal convictions. It's not a free speech issue. I thnk it represents an attempted coup de etat by Christian conservatives.
You are correct. I can't find the quotes now, but I have on several occasions read statements by christian politcal groups which state out-right that their goal is have a legal system founded on the Bible.
They don't seem to have thought very hard about what that actually means or they wouldn't say it.
Conservative Christians have never been particularly comfortable with first amendment to the constitution. They support it whole heartedly when they are in the minority and need protection from another over zealous religion, but as soon as they are in the majority, they forget their own history.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
My history of the Protestant movement is weak, but NPR had a great discussion about this issue this past week. One commentator made the point about the irony in Moore's stance. Moore is obviously part of a Protestant religion. If I remember correctly, part of the reason of the Protestant reformation was that they wanted to get AWAY from the idolotry and ritual trappings of the Church. The very thing that drove a wedge between Christian faiths AND sent them packing over to the new world is now being done in our own country by someone who supposedly calls himself a Protestant. Was this gents history in error or does this make sense? When I thought about it, it did smack of some irony.
I like with Geoff had to say and I have been thinking of it all week myself. My thought when I first read about all the attempts to keep the monument up made me wonder, "Are people's faith so tenuous that if it isn't displayed in every aspect of their life then there is no God?" My own church's philosophy is that one's relationship with God or the Divine or call it what you will is personal and unique. It shouldn't take a giant monument to fufill what one's own heart should be finding out for themselves.
I think people are afraid that God doesn't exist and those that protest the most have the least faith in their own beliefs. How else can one see it? If one has a comfortable and satisfying relationship with the Divine in the world, how would the existance of "With God All Things Are Possible" at the Ohio Statehouse or the Ten Commandments in Alabama make a difference? How does it strengthen that relationship? It doesn't, but it surely can distract one from the fact they may not have such a relationship.
In my opinion. I guess with the gobs and gobs of churches in this country, I can't understand the need to take religion out of the personal life and out of the community church and spread it where it isn't desired by everyone, such as a public building.
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