BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BP)–Three years ago, Judge Roy A. Moore was thrust into the national spotlight when he defied an order by another judge to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom and stop praying before court sessions. Now, Moore, a Southern Baptist layman, could become the state’s new chief justice of the Supreme Court.
On June 6, despite being vastly outspent, Moore won the Republican nomination for the state’s highest judgeship with 55 percent of the vote. His closest opponent garnered only 30 percent of the total. Moore is set to face Judge Sharon Yates, a Democrat, in November’s general election.
Janet Parshall, spokesperson for the Family Research Council, told CNSNews.com she was ecstatic about Moore’s nomination.
“The cornerstone of American law happens to be, like it or not, the Ten Commandments. What a novel idea — a judge who understands the genesis, no pun intended, of the law,” Parshall said.
“Nothing like nominating a judge who knows the law,” Parshall continued, “who stands on the law and is going to carry the law with him. I think when you get 55 percent in the primary where he doesn’t even need the runoff, that says that a whole lot of people have decided that this is the right man.”
Moore received national attention three years ago when he defied another judge’s order that he remove a handmade wooden tablet of the Ten Commandments that he had hung behind his court bench. He also continued to invite pastors to begin court sessions with prayer, despite a judge’s order to stop. The judge’s rulings came in response to a lawsuit against Moore filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The suit was later dismissed.
In his campaign, Moore argued that many activist judges have misinterpreted the founding father’s intent. He contends that the removal of God from public life has contributed to school shootings and an expansion of homosexual rights.
“We’ve forgotten that judges shouldn’t be running around trying to form society into something they think it should be,” Moore told The New York Times. “They’ve taken something from us that is the most valuable thing that our forefathers held dear, the freedom to worship God, publicly, privately, in the manner we choose.”
Moore said that he believes that God’s law, as revealed in the Bible, is the source of man’s law and that Christian principles form the foundation of American government and jurisprudence.
He said that if he won in November, he would take his Ten Commandments plaque with him to the Supreme Court, though he did not know whether he would hang it in his chambers or behind the court’s bench.
Parshall said she believes Moore’s nomination may be setting a trend in favor of publicly posting the Ten Commandments.
“We have cultural fatigue in this country. … We’re tired of hearing every week school violence stories and we’re tired of hearing that the sludge pours into our family rooms now with no protection whatsoever. I think it’s starting to swing the other way and it’s none too soon. Maybe there is a moral code that was given to us by a God who loves us. Maybe people are hungry for those guidelines again,” Parshall said.
During a campaign appearance the day before the primary election, Moore did not hesitate to criticize the courts for legalizing abortion and for pushing Vermont lawmakers to legalize homosexual gay unions.
Without a moral and legal standard based on Scripture, he said, the logical extension will be laws allowing unions between “two men and four women” or between “a sheep and a man.”
“Let me ask you this,” he said. “Are you going to pay your tax money to support a man and a sheep on welfare? Hmmm?”
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