A judge in conflict
Alabama’s Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore must realize it is impossible to serve two masters. Judge Moore, two years ago, moved a 5,300-pound granite marker of the Ten Commandments into the rotunda of the state judicial building. A legal battle ensued. He lost. Yet he refuses to bow to the wishes of man’s law.
Good arguments can be made on either side of the debate involving the posting or display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings.
Six of the Ten Commandments have little to do with religion and everything to do with running an orderly society. Don’t lie, steal, cheat, disrespect, murder or lust after another’s goods or spouse. Most of man’s laws are based on these principles revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai.
But the other four commandments – those based purely on the belief that there is one God, and that these are His laws – run counter to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of…” Judge Moore is exercising his right to express his religion but he is doing it at the expense of conveying that it is the law of Alabama as well.
Other battles over displaying the Ten Commandments have had mixed results. Recently a federal judge permitted Allegheny County to continue with its display because it appears in a historic, rather than a religious, context.
There is not a thing historic to Judge Moore’s display. He is clearly flouting the Constitution by promoting a particular religious doctrine, and his continual zest to ignore court rulings call into question his own fitness to wear a judicial robe.
If Judge Moore is so incensed by man’s law as he claims in charging that the U.S. District judge who ruled against him had placed himself “above God,” then he needs to step down from the bench. As a servant of the law, Moore must obey its rulings or risk calling into question his own fitness to interpret and rule on man’s edicts. As a servant of the Lord, if Moore finds man’s law so offensive that he must break it, then he also must step down. He cannot serve two conflicting masters.