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restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations
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Will Evangelicals Forsake Judge Moore in His Hour of Need?
Today Judge Roy Moore stands trial for refusing to trash the U.S. Constitution. If ever there was a need for evangelical Christians to stand for truth, the time is now.
What a pathetic response the judge is getting from “inside-the-Beltway” Republican evangelicals. Top-dog “conservative” leaders have denounced Moore in no uncertain terms, saying he should have obeyed a federal court order and removed his monument. “Do evangelical Christians really want to say that this United States government is no longer a legitimate government and that we are no longer obligated to obey its courts when we disagree with their rulings?” declared one. “If so, let us understand it for what it is. It is insurrection. I want to reform this government, not rebel against it as an illegitimate government beyond repair.”
That is an absolute absurdity. The Roy Moore case is precisely about following the rule of law! Judge Thompson’s ruling effectively dismantled the justice system of the state of Alabama by prohibiting judicial officers from obeying the very Constitution they are sworn to uphold! As Moore has written:
Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor and my fellow justices have argued that they must act to remove the monument to preserve the rule of law. But the precise opposite is true: Article VI of the Constitution makes explicitly clear that the Constitution, and the laws made pursuant to it, are “the supreme Law of the Land.” Judge Thompson and the judges of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have all sworn oaths which bind them to support the Constitution as it is written—not as they would personally prefer it to be written. By subjugating the people of Alabama to the unconstitutional edict by Judge Thompson, that public officials may not acknowledge God, the attorney general and my colleagues have made the fiat opinion of a judge supreme over the text of the Constitution. While agreeing with me that the Constitution is supreme, and that the opinion of Judge Thompson was contrary to the Constitution, the attorney general has argued that he must follow an order he himself believes to be in direct violation of the supreme law of the land.
Here, in words all can understand, is the plain truth: Judge Moore disregarded an unlawful order of a federal judge in a matter pertaining to the state of Alabama! As Moore has stated repeatedly, his actions are “the lawful response of the highest judicial officer of the state to his oath of office.” Thus it is Judge Thompson and his defenders—such as Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor—who have put themselves above the law!
May I ask those of you who oppose Judge Moore three questions?
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Shouldn’t the people of the great state of Alabama be allowed to decide for themselves what religious convictions they will avow?
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Is it proper for the U.S. Supreme Court, which opens its proceedings with the statement, “God save the United States and this honorable court,” to refuse to support Judge Moore’s right to acknowledge God?
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Shouldn’t Judge Moore have refused to obey an unlawful court order that destroys the right of the people of Alabama, under the First and Tenth Amendments, to determine how religion will be expressed in their state?
If ever there was a time when Congress needed to protect the public from the usurpations of activist judges who are assaulting the U.S. Constitution, it is now. We must put an end to this militant indifference and apathy to the edicts of mere men when they contradict a higher law. We must emulate the courageous “Here I stand” attitude of Martin Luther. The simple freedom to pass out a Gospel tract is not what is at stake here. What is at stake is restoring common sense and true moral values to the nation.
It is time to ask the hard question James put to the earliest Christians: Will we benefit from the warmth of the Christian faith and yet refuse to apply its absolutes to the world around us?
November 12, 2003
David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. He is currently finishing his latest book, Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon.