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Opinion
The Battalion
Page 11A • Monday, September 1, 2003
A commanded removal
Alabama courthouse statue violates
separation of church and state
E
JOHN DAVID
BLAKLEY
larly Wednesday morning, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy
Moore stood powerless as a 5,300 pound statue of the Ten Commandments
fwas removed from the rotunda of the Alabama State Judicial Building. The
decision to move the statue was appropriately made by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals this month on the basis of separation of
church and state. Moore had secretly installed the
monument in the late evening of July 31, 2001,
and continues to vow to appeal the circuit court’s
decision to the Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled that
the monument’s placement violated the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which states “Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Moore’s
defense of the statue relies on the claim that the Establishment Clause
does not apply to Moore because he is a government official of Alabama,
not the federal government.
Being the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, one would think
Moore would not overlook the 14th Amendment. Surely he is aware
that this amendment states, “No state shall make or enforce any
law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citi
zens of the United States.” The 1940 Cantwell v.
Connecticut decision states, “the 14th Amendment
was interpreted to make the prohibitions of the
First applicable to state action abridging religious
freedom.” This means that the First Amendment
becomes applicable to all state officials, from Chief
Justice Moore down to every kindergarten teacher.
Moore’s defense also relies on his belief that the stat
ue is not equivalent to a law respecting an establishment of religion.
However, the statue’s placement does not pass the Endorsement Test set up
by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in Lynch v. Donnelly
in 1987. O'Connor wrote, “a government action is invalid if it creates a
perception in the mind of a reasonable observer that the government
is either endorsing or disapproving of religion.”
Any reasonable observer who walks by a statue of the Ten
Commandments surely recognizes it as a promotion of Judeo-
Christian religion.
People who are not subscribers of this religion may have felt
intimidated if they passed the monument in a state building. They
were judged not only for crimes against the state and nation, but also
crimes against a god foreign to their beliefs. If religiously-based judge
ments were the judgments that courts were to make, America would no
longer be a land of, by and for the people, but merely a land of, by and
for the people of certain religious beliefs.
It is Moore’s responsibility to interpret the Constitution and law of
the United States, not the law of God.
Moore also claims that U.S. law is based on the Ten
Commandments, which simply is not true. There is no sentence for
worshiping more than one god, committing adultery or taking the
Lord's name in vain. Our Constitution and law are based on rules of
civilization which date back to ancient Greece and Rome, not merely
the Ten Commandments.
A statue of the creed of any specific religion in a state building vio
lates the spirit of separation of church and state. One cannot stress
enough the importance of this separation to a free society. The found
ing fathers, observing that societies of the past lacking a barrier
between religion and government experienced oppression and blood
shed, placed the Establishment Clause foremost in the Bill of Rights
for a purpose.
The framers of the Constitution separated church and state so
freedom could thrive in America, and Americans today must look
past passion and religious fervor to respect this decision. No presi
dent, legislator, judge or school board member has any right to
enforce his religious beliefs on another person.
The removal of the statue from the Alabama State Judicial
Building leaves Moore with only a dimming hope that the Supreme Court will overrule the circuit
court. Moore was suspended last week by a state judicial commission, which will hold a hearing on
whether to discipline him or remove him from the bench. But for now, all who are left around the
building are crowds of Christian fanatics, cursing the removal of the monument and praising Moore for
his obstinacy. They have most likely learned nothing of the importance of the Constitution’s text on the
separation of church and state.
This episode should make Americans grateful for the First Amendment and for the ensured free
doms and safety of the nation’s people. Instead, the only change seen after this incident is that an
Alabama Supreme Court Justice has become a little more popular with his constituents.
State judges are not hound by First
Amendment religious clause
1
T
x J
John David Binkley is a sophomore
political science major.
Ihere is no “separation of church and state” in the fundamental law of the
United States. It was never there to begin with. Ignoring this, federal
Judge Myron Thompson ruled in August that the people of Alabama,
through their elected state Chief Justice Roy Moore, are not allowed to “acknowl
edge God” with a monument to the Ten Commandments.
Not only does Thompson have no legal basis for his ruling, but the people of
Alabama have an obligation to refuse it.
In the 1990s, Alabama county judge Roy Moore gained publicity for defying a
court order to remove a plaque of the Ten Commandments he had in his court
room. Running on a platform to keep the Ten Commandments on display, Moore
won the position of Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. He
then honored his campaign promise and installed a monument to the
Ten Commandments at the state courthouse using private funds.
While there is nothing unconstitutional about this action, that fact has
not kept anti-religion zealots from using their interpretation of the
Constitution to have the statue removed.
On the topic of religion, the U.S. Constitution is clear. “Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or pro
hibiting the free exercise thereof.” Obviously, Judge Moore is not .
Congress, and the existence of the Ten Commandments does not
establish a religion.
What the founding fathers feared was the establishment of a fed
eral religion such as was present in England during their time. At
the same time, they respected the right of the people of each state to
have religion in their own governments. Proof of this is that at the
time of the passage of the Bill of Rights, some of the states, includ
ing Massachusetts, had taxpayer-funded churches.
Since some people will claim that the 14th Amendment some
how makes Moore the equivalent of Congress, how is a granite stone
the establishment of a national or even state religion? The monument
did not declare an official religion, compel the citizens of Alabama
to support a religion or harm them in any way. The real motivation
of activists supporting the removal of the monument is simply to
spit in the eye of people of faith. Thompson hints at this in his rul
ing when he calls the monument “nothing less than an obtrusive
year-round religious display.” But the monument does not belong
to any one religion. Christianity, Judaism and Islam all use the
tenets found in the Ten Commandments.
Even if they are religious, obtrusive year-round religious dis
plays are not prohibited in the Constitution. They are protected
by it.
Moore was right to assert that without the acknowledgement
of God, America’s laws mean nothing. “They have used words
never mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, like ‘separation of
church and state,’ to advocate not the legitimate jurisdictional
separation between the church and state, but the illegitimate sep
aration of God and state.”
The founding fathers built American democracy on the basis of
natural rights, or in other words, that people’s rights come from
God and not the government. This is what justified the founding of
the United States against the wishes of the King of England and
why the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the
Alabama Constitution and the Oath of Office all invoke the name
of God. That is also why the Supreme Court has its own monument
to the Ten Commandments and why the Supreme Court and
Congress both open in prayer.
For those who will say Moore “violated the rule of law” by
disobeying the federal court order, remember Thompson broke
the rule of law first. Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes
described it this way: “The whole train of legal precedent that
has been fabricated fraudulently from the bench has no basis
in our Constitution, and to say we must simply submit to base
less dictation from the bench is, as Jefferson himself pointed out,
to surrender to judicial despotism.”
This federal ruling, not based on the higher law of the Alabama
or U.S. Constitutions, is illegitimate. Moore is sworn to uphold the constitutions, and he would be
remiss not to do so.
To enforce his ruling, Thompson levied a fine of $5,000 a day on Alabama so long as the monu
ment was on display. The fine is in U.S. dollars, a cunency that is stamped with “In God We Trust”
and the same “unconstitutional” currency that Thompson takes his paycheck in. God and the Ten
Commandments, the basis for both our freedom and our law, trump the decrees of an appointed
judge. The people will not have justice until both the monument and their rights are restored.
Cracie Arenas • THE BATTALION
Matt Maddox is a senior
management major.
Free speech zones protect students
In response to Matt Maddox's Aug. 27 column:
Restriction of free speech is not the intent of the policies put in
place by the administration. The policies are there to protect the
students’ right to learn in an environment conducive to study. By
putting the free speech zones in place it removes the disruption
from classes and the normal student schedule. The U.S.
Department of Education Office of Civil Rights does not
denounce this behavior. In fact it supports such restrictions on
free speech to ensure the rights of all students. The right for one
person’s free speech ends quickly at the next person’s right to a
learning environment. The Office of Civil Rights has stated the
policies are put in place to “ensure a safe and nondiscriminatory
environment for students that is conducive to learning and pro
tects both the constitutional and civil rights of all students.” The
requirements to use a free speech zone are not complicated and
only require basic information about what will happen during the
time requested. Nothing in this policy is a violation of students’
rights but rather protects the students.
Preston Babb
Class of 2006
Speech column facts not accurate
I salute Mr. Maddox for alerting us to the potential violation of
free speech rights of all members of the Texas A&M community
posed by the limiting of peaceful assemblies to so-called “free
MAIL CALL
speech zones” on our campus. However, some of the information
in the piece was inaccurate.
Mr. Maddox repeats misinformation previously published in
numerous Mail Call letters during the spring semester when he
writes that “Christian faculty members were threatened with dis
missal for speaking out against a departmental policy that would
have required them to ‘celebrate’ homosexuality.” There is no
such departmental policy; the faculty members in question were
responding to a request for opinions on a proposed statement on
diversity written by a faculty advisory body within the College of
Education and Human Development. No one was threatened
with dismissal, although many students and faculty who strongly
disagreed with these faculty members’ opinions called for our
Dean to dismiss one faculty member from his Associate Dean
position. The Dean refused to dismiss this individual. Ultimately,
many of the faculty members bringing the original objections sup
ported the final revised version of our diversity statement.
Dr. Susan A. Bloomfield
Department of Health and Kinesiology
Offensive cartoon perpetuates nega
tive stereotypes of Muslims
In response to Mike Luckovich’s Aug. 27political cartoon:
Once again, The Battalion has managed to publish an offensive
cartoon without thought of the possible effects on the students of
this campus. I find your disregard and disrespect towards our
Muslim community deplorable. The illustration of terrorist praising
Allah is inappropriate and associates the Muslim’s God with acts
of terrorism, bombings and destruction. While the reality is that
most terrorist groups profess that their actions are a calling from
Allah, there is a much larger portion of the Islamic world that finds
the terrorist’s actions evil and unjustifiable and in no way associ
ates the actions with a religious mandate from God. Tensions
and prejudices against Muslims living in America have been
prevalent since the tragic 9-11 attacks, and images such as this
only perpetuate the ideas that Muslims are terrorists. Could The
Battalion have gotten away with a cartoon associating Christ with
a “terrorist” attatk by a white supremacist group claiming they
represent Christianity? Would it even be considered for publica
tion? Of course it would not, because it would offend most of the
Christians on this campus, myself included. Respect should be
shown to all religious and ethnic groups on campus. I hope in the
future The Battalion will sponsor diversity, respect, tolerance and
peace.
Suveen N. Mathaudhu
Graduate Student
The Battalion encourages letters to the editor. Letters must be 200 words or
less and include the author’s name, class and phone number. The opinion editor
reserves the right to edit letters for length, style and accuracy. Letters may be sub
mitted in person at 014 Reed McDonald with a valid student ID. Letters also may
be mailed to: 014 Reed McDonald, MS 1111, Texas A&M University, College
Station, TX 77843-1 111. Fax: (979) 845-2647 Email: mailcall@thebattalion.net