Roy Moore’s EthicsJoin now to read essay Roy Moore’s EthicsMoore-ily EthicalA few thousand years ago on Mount Sinai, Moses was given the Ten Commandments, carved in stone, and proclaimed them as laws of God which were to rule supreme over the Israelites. In August of 2001, a monument of the Ten Commandments, also carved in stone, was mounted in the rotunda of the State Judicial Building by Judge Roy Moore. However, people are questioning Roy Moore’s intentions when he used a governmental position and building to impose his particular preference of religion. Alabama citizens cannot help but wonder if our government will be in jeopardy if Moore is elected into office. Will he impose his personal religious agenda over what is laid out in the Alabama constitution or will he set aside his beliefs and serve as a non-partial governing body?
Two years after the installation of the Ten Commandments, Judge Roy Moore was ordered by Federal Court Judge Myron Thompson to remove the monument from the state building declaring that the display was unconstitutional (Dyer). Judge Thompson is not telling Moore that he cannot be a Christian, he is only saying that it is unconstitutional to impose, with the use of law in judicial rulings, Moore’s own preference of religion. Unfortunately, Moore’s adversaries have focused too much on the monument and not enough on how he is trying to use it. The problem is not the monument itself; the problem is how Judge Moore plans to use the monument to justify his rulings and beliefs. Now one of Moore’s lawyers accurately points out that putting the Ten Commandments on display is not the same as making a law or establishing a religion, but Moore repeatedly presents the monument as the moral basis of law (Wingfield). So Judge Moore’s use of the Ten Commandments display is to establish American law in terms of Christian principles.
Another issue that Judge Roy Moore can not understand is that freedom of religion does not mean freedom to inflict one’s religion on others as a function of any state office or job. According to Rick Garlikov, “What is important is that people’s position in office should not be used to impose their beliefs on others, particularly since that imposition goes against the stated law” (Garlikov). Therefore, a judge cannot ignore the law so that his own ethical views can be enforced. Judge Moore is using the Ten Commandments to represent the authenticity of his Christian interpretation of the law. By trying to justify his own religious beliefs with the moral foundation of law, Moore is trying to sneak his beliefs through the backdoor because it would be unlawful for him to bring them through the front.
According to the Birmingham News, Judge Roy Moore said that he placed the two and a half ton granite monument in the lobby to help restore the moral foundation of law in Alabama (Birmingham News). Moore is quoted saying, “and you can only do that by recognizing the source of those moral laws, which is God.” Nevertheless, the moral foundation given by the founding fathers themselves for the American legal system, in both the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble, is neither the Bible nor the creator of the Bible. Instead, it is the consent of the governed for laws that promote and provide from the common safety, welfare, happiness, and the blessings of liberty (Preamble). The American Constitution is not found in the Bible, although it is a derivative of religious beliefs, the Constitution is not copied from anything in the Bible. Many laws in different states
the most recent enacted in that court by then were passed with a different set of values and a different set of objectives, which can also override the decision of the federal judges. Therefore, a legal case can be appealed by a Christian who said that laws that promote or provide from the common safety, welfare, happiness, and the blessings of liberty were not allowed to pass and were therefore violated by those who enacted them in unconstitutional court.
The Constitution has a different view in the case of the State of Kansas.
Lawyers for Kansas, which is one of the five states with the most states with religious protections, want to be sure that the Supreme Court is not in a position to decide how to use the Constitution in a religious or personal sense. The Constitution did not prohibit state religious laws, like those in Illinois, that were rejected by the Supreme Court, so they need not be taken into account. Just as they do if a court issues a law to allow for the state’s use of religion in the form of legislation, so they are taking into account if a court goes to enforce religious, personal, or moral laws that could create discrimination or cause a religious act to violate the Constitution.
The Constitution’s provisions regarding religious and personal rights are far harsher, in the sense that states cannot bar others from wearing or wearing religious clothing. It is true that religious groups that express their preference for uniformed services do not have to comply with the rule which applied for those services: they are permitted to wear uniforms, but they have to comply either with law or by force of force (even though uniformed service would violate the Constitution, in general).
Even if a state has an open and fair rule of law, it has not yet recognized that many different religions and religions in those states are under different rules—and they have not yet recognized what the Supreme Court has called a ‘universal code of law’ of law concerning those religions, which is a different case from that of other religions, such as the Catholic Church. If the court goes to overturn a religious statute, the states have another legal option for allowing it to be enforced; they have had to defend a different religious statute, one that might allow the state to pass a school voucher program, or enforce a law.
Lawyers for the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Society and the Lawyers for Freedom of Information Act (RFOIA) are also interested in religious liberty issues. The lawsuit asks that the Supreme Court rule on the status of marriage equality:
As a matter of law, Plaintiffs should not have to contend that the Oklahoma Supreme Court is not allowed to hold on to their right to marry, or to have to explain whether this Court is limited to the Constitution. As this is a non-judicial case, Plaintiffs must rely on the Court’s decision in the case before they are permitted to appeal.
The RFOIA case is based on religious freedom in Oklahoma (and not in Alabama), and the Court should not treat this state as any less or less bound by the Fourth Amendment. This situation is so important for constitutional rights and free exercise that it is essential that we protect a state that protects religious and moral rights when it comes to protecting individuals from discrimination, from discrimination based not merely on their beliefs, but on their actions.
[1] https://www.legacylaw.org/2014/05/27/bob-tahoe-s-c