Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of December 31, 2003

BILL PRYOR OUSTS MOORE FOR REFUSING TO DENY GOD

"Chief Justice Roy Moore was explicitly condemned for being ‘unrepentant’ in his unwillingness to submit to a federal order prohibiting him from acknowledging God as a state official. Attorney General Bill Pryor demanded the Court of the Judiciary to immediately remove him from office for his refusal to deny God and for ‘inciting the public to support his misconduct.’ It must be stressed that Attorney General Pryor did not cross-examine Chief Justice Moore on his future position towards Ten Commandment monuments, but only the issue of the acknowledgment of God as a public official. … the following is a partial transcript of the concluding questions in the cross-examination of Chief Justice Moore by Attorney General Bill Pryor:

BILL PRYOR: Mr. Chief Justice? And your understanding is that the federal court ordered that you could not acknowledge God; isn’t that right?

CHIEF JUSTICE MOORE: Yes.

PRYOR: And if you resume your duties as Chief Justice after this proceeding, you will continue to acknowledge God as you have testified that you would today?

MOORE: That’s right.

PRYOR: No matter what any official says?

MOORE: Absolutely. Without – let me clarify that. Without an acknowledgement of God, I cannot do my duties. I must acknowledge God. It says so in the constitution of Alabama. …

PRYOR: The only point I’m trying to clarify, Mr. Chief Justice, is not why, but only that, in fact, if you do resume your duties as Chief Justice, you will continue to do that [acknowledge God] without regard to what any other official says; isn’t that right?

MOORE: Well, I’ll do the same thing this court did with starting a prayer; that’s an acknowledgement of God. Now, we did the same … thing that justices do when they place their hand on the Bible and say, ‘So help me God.’ It’s an acknowledgement of God. The Alabama Supreme Court opened with, ‘God save the State and this Honorable Court.’ It’s an acknowledgement of God. In my opinion, which I have written many opinions, acknowledging God is the source – a moral source of law. I think you must." Source: Douglas W. Phillips, Esq., President, Vision Forum [www.visionforum.com/corner/blog], 11/21/03

"Two members of the court that voted unanimously to remove former Chief Justice Roy Moore from office made campaign contributions to Moore’s opponent in the 2000 election for chief justice.

"Court of the Judiciary members William D. Melton and Sue McInnish contributed to the campaign of Court of Civil Appeals Chief Judge Sharon Yates, who was the Democratic nominee against Moore for chief justice in 2000, according to campaign finance reports filed in the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office. … Moore, a Republican, received 54.6 percent of the vote to defeat Yates in the general election.

"Melton and McInnish joined the other members of the Court of the Judiciary in voting last week to remove Moore from office for refusing a federal judge’s order to move a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judiciary Building. …"

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST IGNORED

"[F]ormer state appeals court judge Mark Montiel said the campaign donations created a conflict of interest for the two Court of the Judiciary members. ‘I can’t conceive of any way any person should be sitting on that case who had made a campaign donation to Chief Justice Moore’s opponent in an election just three short years ago,’ Montiel said.

"Before the trial, [Moore attorney Terry] Butts had asked McInnish and court member Sam Jones to step down from hearing the case because he said their terms on the court had expired. The court turned down the motion. … ‘Obviously the entire trial was a sham,’ Moore said." Source: Bob Johnson, Associated Press, www.TimesDaily.com, 11/20/03

"Many judges seem never to tire in trying to replace the rule of law with the rule of their own dubious wisdom. So maybe the time is drawing near when the non-judicial branches of government should say something to the courts along the lines of what President Andrew Jackson once said of the man then sitting as chief justice of the Supreme Court.

" ‘John Marshall has made his decision,’ Old Hickory reportedly remarked, ‘now let him enforce it.’ "

OUR RUNAWAY JUDICIARY MUST BE REINED IN

"In other words, legislative bodies and executives might say to reckless courts, go hang. If you don’t abide by the Constitution or laws that are constitutional, neither are we bound to abide by your democracy-skirting, law-evading pretense at ultimate supremacy in all matters of what is and is not legal. We will choose to ignore you. …"

NO NEED TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION: DEPLOY ARTICLE III

"The preferred response of some is to amend the U.S. Constitution. … But whatever merits such an amendment might have, it is not a broad answer to judicial activism. It would cover just one issue, whereas federal and state courts have been having a high old time usurping legislative prerogatives on literally hundreds of issues. Besides, the very predicament facing us is that the courts are ignoring constitutions and their amendments as if such things cannot possibly bind them. Are the courts likely to have a change of heart just because a provision is fresh instead of time-honored and rooted deep in our civilization’s wisdom? Wouldn’t they sooner or later be saying that this new portion of the Constitution isn’t constitutional and has to go, such being the conclusion their unanswerable intellects have settled on?" Source: Jay Ambrose, The Washington Times, 11/29/03, p. A13

JURIES SHOULD BE ABOVE THE JUDGES

"Why have juries largely failed in their intended function? … First, juries have been stripped of their rightful, historical power to judge the law as well as the fact. For example, juries with the power to nullify unjust laws routinely acquitted those charged with violating the Fugitive Slave Law. A jury that must follow the law as explained by the judge, would have been forced to convict the liberators."

GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES SHOULD BE EXCLUDED FROM JURIES

"Second, juries are now packed with people who make a living from government work or depend on the government for much or all of their income. …

"Third, ninety percent of jurors went to government schools and heard all that propaganda for seventeen years! Passive submission to a governmental authority figure is imprinted on their brains. …"

JURORS TREATED AS PRISONERS

"Juries are supposed to check the power of the government and government judges. Yet, the jurors themselves are hauled into court by those same judges and remain under their continual and coercive control throughout the trial. They are met at the courthouse door by a squadron of court officers who proceed to subject them to a humiliating search. (When did Americans stop caring about their government treating them like common criminals?) The entire experience of jurors is one of subjugation to the very court they are supposed to counterbalance. Every detail of the trial is controlled by the judge. The jurors must sit in silence and awe from their always lower perch off to the side, a scenario reminiscent of the public school classroom." Source: James Ostrowski, Mises Daily Article [www.mises.org], 12/1/03

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of November 15, 2003

"On February 10, 1947, the United States Supreme Court opened the door for a half-century war on God when it declared a ‘wall of separation’ between church and state in the infamous Everson decision. … The next morning, February 11, 1947, as Americans were reading the phrase ‘wall of separation’ for the first time, Roy Moore was born. It was the beginning of a lifetime of remarkable providences that would someday earn him the moniker, ‘The Ten Commandments Judge,’ and culminate with his heroic stance against a federal judge who sought to ban the State of Alabama from formally acknowledging God."

"Early in the life of our Republic, the Continental Congress, and later the Constitutional Convention resolved whether the state can acknowledge God. They did so through their official prayers, their days of fasting and thanksgiving, the Bibles they commissioned, and their documents of freedom. For more than three hundred years, the principle that the state must acknowledge God was the recognized cornerstone of our liberty — from the establishment of the Plymouth Colony, to John Winthrop’s vision of America as a Christian city on a Hill, to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, to the defense of the homeland by patriot pastors turned militiamen, to the explicitly Christian language of our national charter documents which begin our great experiment in liberty with the declaration that ‘we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights,’ to the very last words of the Constitution which stand as a testimonial of honor to Jesus Christ, ‘our Lord.’ "

JUDGE MOORE PUT HIS POSITION, HIS PAYCHECK, AND HIS PENSION ON THE LINE

"Without reservation or hesitation, Justice Moore risked all that he had for one simple proposition: The state must acknowledge the Christian God of the Bible. He explained to the American people that while it is true that the institutions of church and state are separated by distinct jurisdictions, there can never be a separation of God and state. …"

BILL PRYOR IS THE MALIGNANT HIGH PRIEST AND VENGEFUL PROSECUTOR FOR THE JUDICIAL SANHEDRIN

"Yesterday, Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor ended a two month long spree of personal attacks on Chief Justice Moore, delivered at speaking events throughout Alabama, across the nation, and in the Alabama judiciary itself, by filing a remarkably hostile motion before the Court of the Judiciary requesting that Roy Moore be immediately stripped of his robes and removed from office because he is ‘unrepentant.’

"Now if it strikes you as a bit odd that a prosecutor who is attempting to remove a Chief Justice for refusing to dis-acknowledge God is making his legal case on the basis of the fact that the defendant is ‘unrepentant’ to the almighty judiciary … you ain’t seen nothing yet.

PRYOR IS GUILTY OF SERIOUS ETHICS VIOLATIONS

"Tomorrow, November 12, Chief Justice Roy Moore will be tried in what many Alabamans are describing as a genuine kangaroo court — a star-chamber proceeding with a predetermined verdict, limited access to the public, gross due process and procedural violations, no appropriate appeals process, and a courtroom cast of characters rife with some of the most bizarre conflicts of interests and ethical improprieties in the recent history of the Alabama court system.

"The list of improprieties is staggering. Incredibly, in one of the most bizarre conflicts of interest imaginable, Attorney General Pryor, the prosecutor in this case, has refused to recuse himself despite the fact that:

1.  He was the defendant’s lawyer and previously represented the Chief Justice on the very Ten Commandments case which gave rise to the charges for which he is now prosecuting the defendant;
2.  He received privileged information from the defendant concerning strategy under the attorney/client privilege;
3.  He selected the very judges to preside in the trial, including non-lawyer, unelected political appointees who will try the elected Chief Justice;
4.  He issued Attorney General opinions stripping the defendant of his duties beyond the scope of that which is authorized by statute, and empowering others to fire the defendant’s staff;
5.  He recused himself from serving as prosecutor in a previous case involving the defendant, claiming that he wanted to avoid the mere appearance of impropriety, and,
6.  The piece’ de resistance — Attorney General Pryor actually received his appointment to office by promising to do the very thing for which he is hoping to convict the defendant, his former client."

JURY TRIAL AND MEDIA ACCESS DENIED

"Under any normal ethical standards for professional conduct, the above behavior would be grounds for filing ethics charges against the Attorney General himself. But none of that matters in a star-chamber proceeding where the deck is stacked, the prosecutor has helped to select the judges, more than a dozen reasonable motions for procedural and substantive due process for the defense have been denied by those same judges, including Moore’s request that he be afforded a jury trial, the public and press are denied appropriate access, and the defendant has no real opportunity to appeal. …"

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST IGNORED

"Equally remarkable is the gross conflict of interests on the part of 11^th Circuit Judge Myron Thompson who explicitly declared it illegal for the State of Alabama to acknowledge God. While the monument case was still in motion and appeals were underway, Judge Thompson was a featured keynote speaker for the plaintiffs in the case, the American Civil Liberties Union, at their national convention where the judge addressed the ACLU on the subject of using international law to interpret the Constitution. …

"The Chief Justice himself has appealed to the national press. When the President of the United States was tried, he argues, all America got to watch the trial on television; but when the Chief Justice of Alabama is tried, cameras, recording devices, and easy access to the proceedings by the people is banned. Why? Because the prosecutor knows full well that if the words of the Chief Justice are actually heard by the people, his arguments will win their hearts. …"

PRYOR IS AN AMBITIOUS OPPORTUNIST

"To counter these concerns, Pryor has been engaged in a massive public relations campaign that involves traveling around the country, lecturing to law schools, meeting with members of the Left and Right, and publishing articles — all with the goal of vindicating his campaign to remove Chief Justice Roy Moore from office, and to secure his own seat on the federal bench.

"The Attorney General is in the fight of his political life. Just last Friday, he failed to receive a sufficient vote on the floor of the Senate to break the filibuster preventing a vote on his nomination for federal judge, is in the fight of his political life. He’s banking on the conviction of Chief Justice Moore to prove something to those Democrats — he’s not the same Attorney General who was once appointed by the Christian conservative Governor Fob James. He has seen the light. He now knows how to play by the rules. …"

RULE OF LAW REQUIRES ADHERING TO THE CONSTITUTION

"For the last eleven years, Roy Moore has defended his courtrooms against the attacks of the American Civil Liberties Union which has vowed to drive out both prayer and the Ten Commandments. Along the way, two key men vowed to support him: In 1997, invoking the historic doctrine of interposition, Governor Fob James and his newly appointed Attorney General, Bill Pryor, promised to stand by then Circuit Judge Roy Moore, even if that meant calling out the national guard in defiance of an unlawful federal ruling. Both the Governor and the Attorney General were in agreement that under no circumstance would prayer or the Ten Commandments be removed from Etowah County courtrooms where then Circuit Judge Roy Moore presided."

INTERPOSITION WAS NEEDED

"The doctrine of interposition which is anticipated in the United States Constitution … has a rich twelve hundred year heritage in Western Civilization, is rooted in the biblical doctrine that no man is above the law, and is defined by Black’s Law Dictionary as follows:

The doctrine that a state, in the exercise of its sovereignty, may reject a mandate of the federal government deemed to be unconstitutional or to exceed the powers delegated to the federal government … is based on the 10th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States reserving to the states powers not delegated to the United States. Implementation of the doctrine may be peaceable, as by resolution, remonstrance or legislation, or may proceed ultimately to nullification with forcible resistance. [Black's Law Dictionary, Fourth Edition]

"From the efforts of King Alfred the Great to place rulers under the Ten Commandments, to the Magna Charta, to the Scottish resistance under Wallace and Bruce, to the writings of Calvin, Knox, and Rutherford, to the Westminster Divines, to the Glorious Revolution, to the educational legacy of Princeton under John Witherspoon, to the hundreds of patriot pastors who argued for interposition against Parliament, to the Declaration of Independence, to the writings of the Founding Fathers and early Supreme Court justices like Joseph Story, to the nullification of Supreme Court precedent by the executive branch under Andrew Jackson — the doctrine of interposition has been fundamental in our legal heritage. The essence of this doctrine is a proper understanding of jurisdictions and the rule of law."

The United States boldly broke with the ancient military custom of swearing allegiance to a leader. Article VI required that American officers thereafter swear loyalty to our basic law, the Constitution. While many other nations have suffered military coups, the United States never has. Our American code of military obedience requires that should orders and the law ever conflict, our officers must obey the laws. Many other nations have adopted our principle of loyalty to the basic law. This nation must have military leaders of principle and integrity so strong that their oaths to support and defend the Constitution will unfailingly govern their actions. The purpose of the United States Military Academy is to provide such leaders of character.  (Plaque in Front of West Point, United States Military Academy) (emphasis added)

"As a young West Point cadet, Roy Moore was taught that ‘the rule of law’ required an officer to disobey any order from a superior where that order was in conflict with his oath to the United States Constitution. Tomorrow, he will be tried for keeping his oath, for not disavowing God, and for following the very rule of law which he was taught as a West Point cadet — namely, don’t follow unlawful orders.

"Lt. William Calley never went to West Point, but for his faithful obedience to a superior’s unlawful order, he was tried and convicted of murder. The jury found irrelevant his testimony that ‘he was just following orders.’ …"

INTERPOSITION IS BIBLICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL

"Since his nomination to the federal judgeship, Attorney General Bill Pryor has argued that Chief Justice Moore should ‘just follow orders.’ According to a motion filed yesterday before the Court of the Judiciary, the Chief Justice should be immediately removed from office for the ‘sensational flouting of a valid federal injunction.’ "

WHAT IS THE RULE OF LAW?

"Pryor defends his own complicity in the forced removal of the Ten Commandments monument and his own role in the prosecution of the Chief Justice on the grounds that he (the Attorney General) is following ‘the rule of law.’ Chief Justice Moore, on the other hand, argues the opposite. Namely, that those sworn to uphold the Alabama and federal constitutions are compelled by the rule of law to reject an unlawful order.

"Why the confusion over the ‘rule of law’? The answer is found in the fact that there are two competing philosophies about what constitutes the rule of law which are at play in the trial of Chief Justice Moore. The first philosophy is the historic, constitutional, and Christian doctrine that the rule of law is not the opinion of judges but the law of the land. Within this view, rights are inalienable because they are given by God, and it is the purpose of government to secure these rights, but no government may lawfully restrict them, nor is any law or rule to be considered valid which denies God as the ultimate source of law. This view holds that the Constitution, which along with its preamble, the Declaration of Independence, is predicated upon and presupposes the acknowledgement of the Christian God as Lawgiver, is the Supreme Law of the land, and the only rule of law to be followed, the opinion of individual judges to the contrary, notwithstanding."

PRYOR IS A DARWINIAN LEGAL EVOLUTIONIST

"The second philosophy is the modern view. It is upon this position that Mr. Pryor hangs his jurisprudential hat. The modern view is based on the assumption that law is not governed by fixed principles of higher and constitutional jurisprudence, but evolves based on the changing mores of society and the decrees of whatever unelected official happens to be sitting on the bench at any given time. Under this view, law is positive, meaning that law is whatever men say it is at any given point in time. For proponents of this school of thought, law is subject to change at the whims of judges who, according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, ‘guide the evolutionary participation of the law.’ To follow the ‘rule of law’ is to follow the opinions of judges, regardless of whether such opinions … (a) are beyond the scope of their jurisdiction; (b) are contrary to our Constitution; and (c) clearly violate the higher revealed law of God or the Constitution of our nation."

SOME "LAWS" ARE MORAL ABOMINATIONS

"It was this theory of the ‘rule of law’ which was advanced by the defendants on trial during the 1945 Nuremburg proceedings, and is, perhaps unwittingly, being advanced by those who argue ‘Chief Justice Roy Moore broke the law.’ … Here is the rub: Under the modern view, those German judges and lawyers who personally opposed the mass execution of Jews in the early 1940s, and American judges in the 1990s and beyond who personally oppose the execution of unborn babies, nonetheless feel compelled to actively promote such abominations through their legal career because they are bound by ‘the rule of law.’ "

PRYOR PUTS HIS ASSERTED MORALITY IN THE CLOSET

"During his hearings and throughout the debate for his position for federal judge, for example, Bill Pryor has bent over backwards to repeatedly assure liberal Senators that his personal opposition to abortion and his belief that killing babies is unconstitutional would have no bearing on his recognized duty to follow the ‘rule of law,’ by defending abortion rights as defined by the Supreme Court."

MORRIS DEES PRAISES PRYOR

"Bill Pryor’s commitment to the evolutionary view of the rule of law has drawn praise from some of the most ardent enemies of Christianity. The Washington Post reported that Morris Dees, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and a plaintiff against Chief Justice Moore in the Ten Commandments case, is among Pryor’s defenders. ‘The heat of this battle certainly matured this young man,’ Dees said of Pryor. ‘His actions behind the scenes to orchestrate the state officials handling these things saved Alabama from constitutional crisis.’ [ The Washington Post, Monday, August 25, 2003 A Section 5]"

"After years of being away from the public limelight, former Alabama Governor Fob James has come forward again and issued a public affidavit expressing his profound concern over the hypocrisy of Bill Pryor. In a motion to the Court of the Judiciary, Governor James revealed that Bill Pryor agreed to support the very thing for which he is now prosecuting the Chief Justice:

I talked with Bill Pryor about all this when I was considering him for the job of Alabama Attorney-General. He impressed me with his knowledge of these things and provided me with some legal papers on ‘non acquiescence’ that he was responsible for while at the Tulane Law School. I told Bill about my view that constitutional officials needed to challenge the Supreme Court. For instance, for twenty years my view has been that a Governor should refuse to allow enforcement of a patently unconstitutional court order, and force the president to take action one way or the other on the issue. I don’t mean that we should fight anyone with troops. I do mean that we should use our constitutional authority to force the great issue of the day into the provinces of all branches of the federal government, not just a judiciary that likes to sweep everything under its own rug where it has nearly exclusive control. Bill Pryor was aware of my views when I appointed him, because we discussed these things. Bill had indicated nothing but his wholehearted support of my position on these issues at the time.

I have now heard that Bill Pryor is prosecuting Roy Moore before the Court of the Judiciary for refusing to obey a federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments from the State Judicial Building. If this is true, Bill’s [actions] today are utterly contrary to the political and legal convictions he expressed to me. Had he expressed his present view, I would not have found him qualified to be Attorney-General of Alabama. The main reason Pryor was appointed was his understanding and the ability to express that understanding well that a public official’s highest duty was to the Constitution of the United States and not to the Supreme Court or any other entity.

"One of the primary reasons I ran for Governor in 1994 was a forty-year pattern of illegal acts by the U.S. Supreme Court. Forbidding pre-game prayer by young athletes, the removal of the 10 Commandments from the schools, and the ever-expanding grab for power by the courts, especially the federal courts, concerned me. I repeatedly spoke on these matters throughout my campaign…In my second term I had the good fortune to have Jeff Sessions as Attorney-General for a time. After he was elected to the U.S. Senate, he recommended to me a young man from Mobile named Bill Pryor to replace him. I remember talking with Bill about Judge Brevard Hand, a federal judge also from Mobile. Bill spoke highly of Judge Hand and, if I remember correctly, a decision the Judge had made in the Jaffree school prayer case in Mobile during my first term as Governor. Judge Hand had ruled in that case that the U.S. Supreme Court was misusing the legal system to achieve its own social agenda, while usurping authority granted only to the legislative branches of government. As Judge Hand wrote, ‘We must give no future generation an excuse to use the same tactic to further their ends which they think proper under the then political climate as for instance did Adolph Hitler when he used the court system to further his goals.’ I later asked the Judge to swear me in as Governor for a second term in 1995, which he graciously did. The main part of my inauguration in January, 1995, was an historical festival with actors playing the parts of historical figures like George Washington warning of ‘change by usurpation’ in our government. I paid more attention to what Washington and Jefferson and Jackson and Lincoln said about the checks and balances in our legal system, especially as it relates to checking the power of the judiciary, than to ambitious and dishonest judges we saw in the 20^th century." FORMER ALABAMA GOVERNOR FOB JAMES

"THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT PRYOR IS PROSECUTING CHIEF JUSTICE MOORE FOR THE VERY THING THAT PRYOR AGREED TO DO TO GET HIS ORIGINAL APPOINTMENT." FOB JAMES III

"Governor James son, Fob James III, an attorney who was present for meetings with Pryor, submitted to the Court of the Judiciary an affidavit in which he explained that Bill Pryor had formally agreed to stand with Governor Fob James, and then Circuit Judge Roy Moore in disobeying unconstitutional court orders concerning prayer in court or the Ten Commandments.

"James writes: ‘…after both then Circuit Judge Roy Moore and Governor James had said publicly that they would never comply with a court order to remove the commandments, Pryor as Attorney-General promised — in a meeting of lawyers defending Judge Moore — to ‘be with’ the Governor in ultimately defying an adverse U.S. Supreme Court order to remove the Commandments. The bottom line is that Pryor is prosecuting Chief Justice Moore for the very thing that Pryor agreed to do to get his original appointment.’

"But I say to my fellow Alabamians at this moment, the only way those Ten Commandments and that prayer will be stripped from that court is with the force of arms. Make no mistake about that statement.’ … Alabama Governor Fob James, 1997

"What is the context here? Flashback to 1997: Circuit Judge Roy Moore of Etowah County in Alabama is sued by the ACLU for two things: Prayer in his court and a display of the Ten Commandments. Enter Alabama Governor Fob James. When Governor James learned about the courageous Circuit Court judge and his battle against the ACLU, he introduces himself to Moore and pledges to call out the national guard in an act of interposition against any court order which may arise to throw God out of the courtrooms. Governor James stated:

I am sworn to uphold the United States Constitution and I will.... Judge Price's order stripping Judge Moore's courtroom of the Ten Commandments clearly prohibits the exercise of religion. I would use all legal means at my disposal, which includes the National Guard and the state troopers, to prevent the removal of the Ten Commandments from Judge Moore’s courtroom.

"In the midst of this, then Alabama Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigns to take a seat in the United States Senate, leaving the Attorney General position wide open. Upon the recommendation of Senator-elect Sessions, Governor Fob James interviews a young Deputy Attorney General, Bill Pryor.

"Now keep in mind the raging issue de jour at the time of the appointment is the Ten Commandments case, and the official position of the Governor of Alabama is non-compliance to such an order enforceable by the National Guard to all unconstitutional orders banishing God from the court rooms of Alabama."

PRYOR PANDERS

"Bill Pryor understands the issue. He also wants the job. Governor Fob James is presented with an article by Bill Pryor himself, written while editor of the Tulane Law Review, on the issue of non-compliance to unconstitutional federal orders. The Governor then interviews the young Deputy Attorney General who assures the Governor that he would stand with him on the issue of lawful resistance through non-compliance on the Judge Roy Moore Ten Commandments case. That is what the Governor needs to hear, so with this assurance from Pryor as the condition precedent for getting the job, Bill Pryor is appointed Alabama Attorney General. …"

"Shortly after being appointed by Governor James to the position of Attorney General, the ambitious Bill Pryor realized that his goal of being nominated for a federal judgeship would not be advanced through his alliance with the Governor. So Pryor turned on the man who appointed him by formally supporting his opponent in the race for governor. Pryor also reversed his position on non-compliance to unlawful federal orders, and even went so far as to nullify a state law against partial birth abortion, based on his view of the ‘rule of law.’ "

PRYOR IS A SELL-OUT ON ABORTION

"It is on the basis of this commitment to the ‘rule of law,’ that some Senators are urging Democrats to accept Bill Pryor. On the one hand, Bill Pryor claims to be vehemently pro-life; but on the other hand, he has vowed to enforce abortion rights laws he himself has admitted are patently unconstitutional. Pryor is of that brand of lawyer who believes (a) abortion is murder; (b) the Constitution prohibits abortion; but (c) as an official of the state, he has an ethical duty under the ‘rule of law’ to facilitate and legitimize the burning alive, vivisection of babies because he is just following orders."

PRYOR REFUSED TO ENFORCE PROHIBITION OF PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION

"An example of this, and perhaps the nadir of Mr. Pryor’s efforts to please all men in the hope of securing a federal judgeship, came when he aggressively refused to enforce duly enacted Alabama laws defending the life of the unborn. In a letter sent to Alabama Senator Shelby, Fob James, III urged the Alabama Senator to oppose Pryor’s nomination because of his highly political record on abortion:

Pryor’s position on these matters [the rule of law] underwent a total reversal later in Governor James’ term, even to the point that Pryor as Attorney General refused to enforce Alabama’s ‘partial birth’ abortion law…. The last conversation I recall with Bill Pryor occurred late in Governor James’ last term after the Governor signed Alabama’s ‘partial birth’ abortion law. When the law passed, Mr. Pryor instructed Alabama district attorneys not to enforce the law as to pre-viable fetuses. In my view, this gutted the law and defeated its very purpose. An equivalent to Pryor’s action would be for the U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft to instruct U.S. attorneys not to enforce the Act of Congress on partial birth abortion that Congress passed yesterday and the President is due to sign shortly, as to ‘pre-viable fetuses.’ I can say with confidence that by the time of this conversation with Pryor, Pryor’s legal and political views had undergone a total reversal from the views which he expressed from the first few months after his appointment as Attorney General. I also know that at sometime after my last conversation with Mr. Pryor, he said, as a matter of public record that his ultimate career goal was to gain for himself a federal appellate judgeship."

"Fob James III continues:

Today, President Bush signed the just-enacted congressional ‘partial birth abortion’ law, and according to news reports the President declared, ‘The executive branch will vigorously defend this law against any who would try to challenge it in the courts.’ When Alabama passed its partial birth law, Bill Pryor, the chief law enforcement officer of Alabama, vigorously and unilaterally refused to ‘defend the law.’ Later, Pryor specifically cited the fact that he refused to defend Alabama’s partial birth law, in an attempt to pander to the Senate Judiciary Committee considering his judicial nomination. Senator, please also pass along to President Bush that Pryor, his 11^th Circuit judicial nominee, believes the president is acting illegally in ‘vigorously defend[ing] this law against any who would try to challenge it in courts.’ "

TREASON IN THE CAMP?

"… Dick Bott, founder and owner of the highly influential Bott Radio Network, and one of the most courageous and principled defenders of the unborn, correctly summed it up when he said:

What so-called conservative pro-life, pro-family politicians tend to do — and [we] let them get away it — is to default at the moment of truth, when it really matters. I can't remember when that was so clearly shown as it is in this case. It's when it's NOT easy that they make up one excuse after another to ‘explain’ why they had to do the wrong thing. Leaders like Judge Roy Moore are in short supply. We must not fail to shine the light of example on them — so the people will know there are people like Judge Moore they can support with complete confidence, leaders who will not flinch when the temptation is greatest to do so."

SEKULOW AND ACLJ OPPOSE JUDGE MOORE

"Chief Justice Roy Moore believes that government officials are protected by the First Amendment to acknowledge, without equivocation or diminishment, the sovereign God of the Bible in the public square. Attorney Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) disagrees.

"For months Mr. Sekulow and his organization have been speaking out against Chief Justice Roy Moore on national television broadcasts, radio programs, in written correspondences, and even before a national home school conference. [Sekulow outlined his qualm with Moore’s strategy during a talk entitled, "Impacting the Culture through the Courts," delivered at the Home School Legal Defense’s National Home School Leadership Conference held September 25-28, 2003 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.] Mr. Sekulow has repeatedly criticized the Chief Justice for his ‘strategy,’ but the reasons for these so-called strategic differences remain fuzzy to many Americans. Here is a brief primer on the subject to help clear things up:

"First, Jay Sekulow argues that to meet constitutional muster a public official must secularize the Ten Commandments by surrounding it with historical documents, thus proving it is not being displayed primarily for religious reasons. In one of his most recent broadcasts with televangelist Pat Robertson, Sekulow expressed hope that any future case which the Supreme Court would consider would not be argued on the inherent right of the state to acknowledge God under the Constitution, but merely on the historicity of the specific monument.

"Chief Justice Roy Moore believes the opposite. He believes that the display of the Ten Commandments is for the very purpose of acknowledging God as the Lawgiver and the Sovereign over this nation. In his view, Sekulow and others who wish to secularize the mere mention of God are unwittingly denying the very sovereignty of God.

"… Mr. Sekulow’s approach has consistently been to secure a ‘win’ at all cost, even if it means ghettoizing Christianity in the public square, by fitting the right to acknowledge God into the cracks and loopholes of bad precedent. … [M]ost Americans do not understand that, as a close associate of Attorney General Bill Pryor who has in the past been hired and deputized by Mr. Pryor to represent the State of Alabama, Mr. Sekulow has a vested interest in standing by the Attorney General and against the Chief Justice. …"

"… [S]uspended by lesser men — but lifted up by the prayers of millions of Christians throughout the United States, Roy Moore each day risks his life and his fortune, but never his sacred honor. Let us not fail to seize the moment. Let us not fail to support Chief Justice Roy Moore. Let us not fail to embrace him, to encourage him, to approve him, and to advance his cause — which is, without doubt, our cause. We must stand with him when he affirms:

I will not violate my oath, I cannot forsake my conscience, I will not neglect my duty. And I will never deny the God upon Whom our laws and Country depend. …"

"1. Oppose the Nomination of Bill Pryor: Please contact your United States [Senators] and urge them to oppose Mr. Pryor’s nomination for federal judge. More dangerous than a liberal who persecutes Christians are those professors of Christ who persecute godly men for standing with the Lord. Through his active promotion of abortion (by opposing the enforcement of Alabama’s partial birth abortion laws), his persecution of those who believe that God can not be separated from government, his violation of his own oath of office to uphold the Constitution, and his unwillingness to recuse himself from prosecuting Chief Justice Moore despite gross conflicts of interest, Mr. Pryor has disqualified himself as a public office holder and should resign his current position.

"2. Make Your Voice Heard: Christian America should flood their papers with letters to the editor and flood talk radio with comments showing the double standard and hypocrisy of those who, in one breath say they are pro-life, but in another breath facilitate abortionists; who at one moment agree to stand for the rule of law, and in the next second redefine such a stand to mean the exact opposite. ...

"3. Encourage Your Pastor to Preach a Message on the Biblical Duty of Civil Magistrates to Stand for Christ: This Sunday and the following, church shepherds from across America should take a stand for Christ by preaching on the importance that the state acknowledge God, on Romans 13 and the biblical doctrine of interposition, and by explaining the story of Chief Justice Moore, a modern day Daniel. Please feel free to download background material and sermon notes from www.visionforum.org. …"

Source: Douglas W. Phillips, a constitutional attorney, the President of Vision Forum Ministries, and the Founder and Director of the Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy which for five years has been responsible for training law students, judges, pastors, and attorneys in biblical principles of jurisprudence and statesmanship. 11/11/03

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of September 30, 2003

"The battle over the Alabama Ten Commandments monument is not about a monument and not about politics. (The battle is not even about religion, a term defined by our founders as ‘the duty we owe to our creator and the manner for discharging it.’) On this point federal judge Myron Thompson, who ordered the monument’s removal, and I are in perfect agreement. This case is about one issue: ‘Can the state acknowledge God?’ These are the precise words used by Judge Thompson in his closing arguments before the court."

JUDGE MOORE IS DEFENDING THE RULE OF LAW

"Today, I argue for the rule of law, and against any unilateral declaration of a judge to ban the acknowledgement of God in the public sector.

"By telling the State of Alabama that it may not acknowledge God, Judge Myron Thompson effectively disestablished the justice system of our state. Judge Thompson never declared the Alabama Constitution unconstitutional, but the essence of his ruling was to prohibit judicial officers from obeying the very constitution they are sworn to uphold. In so doing, Judge Thompson and all who supported his order, violated the rule of law."

BILL PRYOR’S ACTIONS UNDERMINE THE RULE OF LAW

"Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor and my fellow justices have argued that they must act to remove the monument because of the rule of law. But the precise opposite is true: the rule of law requires that they obey the Constitution. 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 Myron Thompson and the judges of the Eleventh 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 [subjecting] 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 violated the rule of law by making the fiat opinion of a judge, supreme over the text of the Constitution. The irony is that 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. " Clearly, the court order is in conflict with the U.S. Constitution.

"The same Founding [F]athers who chose to incorporate by reference the common law into the United States Constitution, were well versed in the great common law commentator, Sir William Blackstone, who declared: ‘Judges do not make laws, they do but interpret them.’ No judge has the authority to impose his will on the people of a state, to invalidate a lawfully ratified state constitution, and no judge has the constitutional authority to forbid public officials from acknowledging the very same God which is specifically mentioned in the charter [documents] of our nation, the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution."

MOORE IS FAITHFUL TO HIS CONSTITUTIONAL OATH

"My decision to disregard the unlawful order of the federal judge was not an act of civil disobedience, but the lawful response of the highest judicial officer of the state of Alabama to his oath of office. Had the judge declared the 13^th amendment prohibition on involuntary slavery to be illegal, or ordered the churches of my state burned to the ground, there would be little question in the minds of the people of Alabama and the United States that such actions should be ignored as both unconstitutional and beyond the legitimate scope of a judge’s authority. But Judge Thompson’s lawless decision to unilaterally void the duties of elected officials under the state constitution, and to prohibit judges from acknowledging God is equally unlawful."

THE "DOCTRINE OF INCORPORATION" AND THE "LEMON TEST" ARE JUDICIAL FICTIONS

"The fact of the matter is ‘the emperor has no clothes.’ For half a century the fanciful tailors of revisionist jurisprudence have been working to strip the public sector naked of every vestige of God and morality. They have done so based on faux readings and inconsistent applications of the First Amendment. They have said it is o.k. for the United States Supreme Court to publicly place the Ten Commandments on its walls, for Congress to open in prayer and for state capitols to have chaplains, as long [as] the words and ideas communicated by such do not really mean what they purport to communicate. They have trotted out before the public using words never mentioned in the United States Constitution, like ‘separation of church and state,’ to advocate, not the legitimate jurisdictional separation between the church and state, but the illegitimate separation of God and state.

"The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting [an] establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ It does not take a constitutional scholar to recognize that I am not Congress, and no law has been passed. Nevertheless, Judge Thompson’s Order states that the acknowledgment of God crosses the line between the permissible and the impermissible, and that to acknowledge God is to violate the Constitution."

WE MUST DARE DEFEND OUR RIGHTS

"Not only does Judge Thompson put himself above the law but also above God as well. I say enough is enough and we must ‘dare defend our rights’ as our State motto declares. No judge or man can dictate what we believe or in whom we believe. The 9^th and 10^th Amendments are not a part of the Constitution simply to make the Bill of Rights a round number. The 9^th Amendment secured our right as a people. The 10^th guaranteed our right as a sovereign state. I say enforce the rule of law." Source: Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, The Wall Street Journal, 8/25/03, p. A10

 DR. DAVID LOWENTHAL ENLISTS THE FOUNDING FATHERS TO PRAISE CHIEF JUSTICE MOORE

"In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, Dr. David Lowenthal, emeritus professor of Political Science at Boston College, said the Founding Fathers would be appalled at the federal court order for the removal of the Ten Commandments monument.

" ‘I would not want to go to jail,’ he said, ‘but if I had to, I wouldn’t give up on the principle’ that Justice Moore is defending ‘that cuts across all lines that [concern] first of all, states’ rights, and … the proper interpretation of the First Amendment.’ "

ROY MOORE IS NOT GEORGE WALLACE

"To compare Moore’s refusal to bow to the atheist/left-wing/ACLU axis with George Wallace’s standing in the schoolhouse door to preserve segregation in 1962 is ludicrous, declares Lowenthal, author of the new book ‘Present Dangers: Rediscovering the First Amendment.’

"Contrary to federal court decisions, Lowenthal says, the First Amendment to the Constitution does not require ‘a perfect separation of church and state, that there be no vestige of religion in the state or in public life or in government.’ Furthermore, ‘even the [U.S.] Supreme Court has edged away from that view in recent decades.’ …"

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT IS HIJACKED BY JUDICIAL LIBERALS

"It is not only the First Amendment that is distorted beyond its meaning by the courts, but the Fourteenth Amendment as well. And that raises the question in this scholar’s mind as to whether the Supreme Court of the United States has jurisdiction over the Alabama Supreme Court in matters of this kind. Lowenthal agrees with Moore that it does not.

"Lowenthal said: ‘Obviously Justice Roy Moore believes that it’s wrong. Otherwise he wouldn’t be doing this. He would bow down to the federal judiciary. But he doesn’t think that he has to. I don’t think so either.’ " Source: Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com, 8/23/03

BILL PRYOR MANIFESTS CONSTITUTIONAL IGNORANCE AND REBELLION

"Alabama State Attorney General William Pryor wonders whether Christians have fully thought through what he describes as a ‘radical states-rights stance.’ There’s nothing radical about it. Pryor claims that if ‘the nonestablishment clause cannot be enforced on the states, then neither can other clauses in the First Amendment, including guarantees of free religious exercise or free speech.’ Exactly! If the states wanted these protections for themselves, they would have to write them into their own constitutions, which they did. In Alabama’s 1819 constitution, we find the following: ‘Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty’ (I:8) Sections 3-7 deal with state religious freedoms. These examples, which could be multiplied state by state, show that the states understood that the Bill of Rights was their constitutional protection from a Federal government that might impose its will on them. Mr. Pryor does not seem to be aware of his own state’s constitutional history. Without violating his oath, in complete compliance with constitutional

theory, and maintaining the rule of law, he could have rejected the jurisdictional usurpation of the federal courts." Source: Gary DeMar, Publisher of American Vision (www.AmericanVision.org), Letter to the Editor of World Magazine, 9/10/03

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of September 15, 2003

LEST WE FORGET

Here are a few facts about the Pharisaic assault on Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy S. Moore:

The Pharisees are running the Sanhedrin.

BILL PRYOR: THE DEVIL’S DISCIPLE

"Republicans here are hopeful that Pryor’s stance in the Ten Commandments case will soften his image and send a message to Democratic opponents in Washington who have filibustered his nomination that he is willing to set aside personal beliefs. …"

PRYOR IS KARL ROVE’S PROTÉGÉ

"He told Fox News on [August 22]: ‘I’m honored to be a nominee of the president, and I will be one as long as he wants me to be his nominee.’ "

LIBERAL DEMS IN ALABAMA LIKE HIM TOO

"While being lambasted by Democrats in Washington, Pryor has maintained pockets of support from the opposing party here in Alabama. His nomination is supported by Joe Reed, the influential chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party’s African American caucus."

SATAN’S SURROGATE, MORRIS DEES, PRAISES PRYOR

"And Pryor even drew rare praise – though well short of an endorsement for the appeals court job – from Morris Dees, the liberal icon and founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represented one of three Alabama attorneys who challenged the constitutionality of the Supreme Court monument.

" ‘The heat of this battle certainly matured this young man,’ Dees said of Pryor. ‘His actions behind the scenes to orchestrate the state officials handling these things saved Alabama from constitutional crisis.’ " Source: Manuel Roig-Franzia, The Washington Post, 8/25/03, p. A5

"When he ordered the removal of the Ten Commandments monument from the Supreme Court Building in Alabama, Federal Judge Myron Thompson stated that the issue at stake involved the question of whether or not the state has the right to acknowledge God. Actually this formulation is a distraction from the real issue, which is whether or not Myron Thompson or any other Federal judge has the right to interfere with state actions that may or may not constitute an establishment of religion."

FEDERAL JUDGES MAY NOT PLACE THEMSELVES ABOVE THE CONSTITUTION

"Someone who simply read the text of the Constitution of the United States would be thoroughly surprised to learn that a Federal Judge claims the right to act in this manner. The First amendment to the Constitution plainly states, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.’ Since there can be no Federal law on the subject, there appears to be no lawful basis for any element of the Federal Government, including the courts, to act in this area."

ROY MOORE IS UPHOLDING THE BILL OF RIGHTS

"Moreover, the tenth amendment to the Constitution plainly states that ‘the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.’ This means that the power to make laws respecting an establishment of religion, having been explicitly withheld from the United States, is reserved to the states or to the people. Taken together, therefore, the first and tenth amendments reserve the power to address issues of religious establishment to the different states and their people."

CONSTITUTIONAL TEXT IS ABOVE JUDICIAL OPINION

"Now, Judge Thompson, like many federal judges and justices before him, claims the unlimited prerogative of dictating to the states what they may or may not do with respect to matters of religious expression. Applying this supposed prerogative he has declared the erection of the Ten Commandments monument by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the state of Alabama to be an unlawful establishment of religion. This he has done despite the clear impossibility of any basis for his action in Federal law or statute. He relies on the assertion, repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, that the First amendment forbids an establishment of religion, and the Fourteenth amendment applies this prohibition to the states. Based on this assertion he and other Federal judges and justices now claim an unlimited right to dictate to the states in these matters."

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT IS MISREPRESENTED

"We have already seen that the actual language of the Constitution does not forbid an

establishment of religion. Rather it forbids Congress to legislate on the subject at all, reserving it entirely to the states. No language in the Fourteenth amendment deals with this power of government. Portions of that amendment do indeed restrict the legislative powers of the states, but they refer only to actions that affect the privileges, immunities, legal rights and equal legal status of individual citizens and persons. The first phrase of the first amendment in no way deals with persons however, but rather, in concert with the tenth amendment, secures the right of the states and the people to be free from the dictates of Federal law respecting an establishment of religion."

RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE AND RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL

"A right of the people as a whole, not an individual right, is the protected object of the first phrase of the first amendment to the Constitution. Even if one accepts the doctrine that the Bill of Rights must be taken as the basis for understanding the privileges and immunities of citizenship, the first phrase of the first amendment simply secures this right of the people, giving clear Constitutional effect to their immunity from Federal dictation in matters of religion. The practical foundation of all the rights and privileges of the individual citizen are the rights that inhere in the citizen body as a whole, the rights of the people and of the state governments. The latter effectively embody their ability to resist abuses of national power. Such rights include the right to elect representatives, and to be governed by laws made and enforced through them. (The right to vote is an individual right. The right to elect is a right of the people as a whole.) Without these corporate and collective rights, there would be no mechanisms for the concerted action of the people, no institutions for their united defense and therefore no materially effective security for their individual persons, property and rights against the organized forces of an abusive national power."

A LOGICAL AND LINGUISTIC CONTRAST

"The establishment phrase of the first amendment secures a right of the people. Until now, though, many have treated the first two phrases of the amendment as if they are one, (‘Congress shall make no law respecting [an] establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’). This practice ignores both the linguistic and the logical contrast between the two phrases. Where the first phrase deals with a right of the people (that is, a power of government reserved to the states and to the people) the second phrase deals with an action or set of actions (the free exercise of religion) that cannot be free unless they originate in individual choice."

U.S. CONSTITUTION IS WRITTEN TO PREVENT FEDERAL DOMINANCE

"The first phrase forbids Congress to address a subject at all. The second allows for Federal action, but restricts the character of such action. By virtue of the first phrase the states and the people as such are protected from Federal domination; by the second individuals are protected from coercion in their religious conduct. The first phrase allows the states and the people as such to follow their will in matters of religion; the second guarantees the same liberty to individuals and the corporate persons they voluntarily compose. The first has as its object matters that are decided by the will of the people (i.e., by the will of the constitutionally determined majority in the different states). The second involves matters decided by the will of each individual."

DISCERNING THE DISTINCTION MAKES A DIFFERENCE

"The failure to observe this distinction leads to the absurd presumption that all government action in matters of religion is somehow inherently a contravention of individual freedom. This can be no more or less true in matters of religion than it is in any other area in which both individuals and governments are capable of action and decision. The government’s power to arm soldiers for the community’s defense does not inherently contravene the individual’s right to arm himself against personal attack. The state government’s power to establish institutions of higher learning does not inherently contradict the individual’s right to educate his young or join with others to start a school. The government’s power to engage in economic enterprises (such as the postal service or electric power generation) does not inherently contradict the individual’s right to private enterprise. It is possible for government coercively to inhibit or repress any of these individual activities, but it is obvious that government action does not in and of itself constitute such coercion."

THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC AUTHORIZES ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION AT THE STATE LEVEL

"As the US Constitution is written, matters of religion fall into this category of parallel individual and governmental possibilities. Federal and state governments, in matters of religion, are forbidden to coerce or prohibit individual choice and action. Within the states, the people are free to decide by constitutional majority the nature and extent of the state’s expression of religious belief. This leaves individuals free to make their own choices with respect to religion, but it also secures the right of the people of the states to live under a government that reflects their religious inclination. As in all matters subject to the decision of the people, the choice of the people is not the choice of all, but of the majority, as constitutionally determined, in conformity with the principles of republican government (which the US Constitution requires the people of each state to respect.)"

THE ONLY QUESTION IS "WHICH RELIGION"?

"The constitution reflects the view that the choice with respect to governmental expressions of religious belief, must respect the will of the majority. Unless, in matters that should be determined by the people, the will of the majority be consulted, there is no consent and therefore no legitimacy, in government. Though it may be argued that matters of religion ought to be left entirely to individuals for decision, this has the effect of establishing in the public realm a regime of indifference to religion. Thus a choice of establishment is inevitable, and the only question is whether the choice will be made by the will of the people or not. The US Constitution, being wholly republican, decides this question in favor of the people, but in light of the pluralism of religious opinions among the people, forbids any attempt to discern the will of the people in the nation as a whole. By leaving the decision to the people in their states, and by permitting a complete freedom of movement and migration among the states, the US Constitution offers scope for the geographic expression of this pluralism while assuring that the absence of a formal and legal expression of religious reverence on a national scale does not inadvertently result in the establishment of a national regime of indifference to religion."

ARROGANT JUDGES MUST BE OERRULED BY THE PEOPLE

"When, by their careless and contradictory abuse of the Fourteenth amendment, the Federal judges and justices arrogate to themselves the power, which, by the first and tenth amendments the Constitution reserves to the states, they deprive the nation of this prudent and logically balanced approach to the issue of religious establishment. Whether through carelessness or an artful effort to deceive, they ignore the distinction between the individual right to free exercise of religion and the right of the people to decide their government’s religious stance. They have in consequence usurped this right of the people, substituting for the republican approach adopted by the Constitution an oligarchic approach that reserves to a handful of un-elected individuals the power to impose on the entire nation a uniform stance on religion at every level of government. The right to decide the issue of establishment is a fundamental right of the people. It is also among the most likely to cause bitter and passionate dissension when the religious conscience of the people is violated or suppressed. That may explain why it is the very first right secured from Federal violation in the Bill of Rights. When they take this right from the people, the Federal judges and justices depart from the republican form of government. They impose, in religious matters, an oligarchic regime upon the states. They therefore violate, in letter and spirit, Article IV, section 4 of the US Constitution. This section declares that, ‘the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.’ "

AMERICA’S REPUBLIC IS ROOTED IN CHRISTIANITY

In addition to these abuses and violations of the US Constitution, their purblind insistence on treating religious freedom as a strictly individual right has produced the very consequence that the Constitution’s more prudent approach seeks to avoid. They have insisted that government adopt a stance of strict agnosticism, which in effect drives from the public realm all things that smack of religious belief. This establishes, in the literal sense, a uniform regime of atheism in government affairs. (In the literal sense atheism simply means the absence of God, and this, in the public realm, is what the Federal judges and justices insist upon.) Since, however unjustifiably, they claim for their opinions the force of law, it necessarily follows that they mean to impose this regime by force, that is, by coercion. Thus in the guise of a judicial effort to protect religious freedom, they destroy it, not for this or that individual but for the people as a whole."

STATE INTERPOSITION CAN COUNTER FEDERAL USURPATION

"Naturally this destruction has aroused anxiety and opposition among the people, who feel and fear the effects of this wholesale suppression of public religious conscience and belief. With each new manifestation of the nature and intent of the Federal Judiciary’s usurpation of their right, the people grow more resistant. Their acts of resistance against this judicial despotism reach higher and more organized levels until they are undertaken in and through the institutions of the state governments. The state governments are the natural focus and vehicle through which the people organize and declare their opposition to unconstitutional assertions of Federal power. Because the Federal judiciary cloaks its usurpation in the usual forms and procedures of law, and because Americans are accustomed to take those forms as evidence of substantive conformity with the law, these manifestations of resistance may be denounced as unlawful. But in this case, the lack of lawful grounds for the Federal Judiciary’s acts must, in the end, repel these denunciations. The Federal judges and justices cannot be acting lawfully when their only claim of lawfulness rests upon the Constitution, since the Constitution’s sole pronouncement on the matter of an establishment of religion precludes the possibility of any Federal law as a basis for their jurisdiction."

UNCONSTITUTIONAL COURT ORDERS MUST BE REJECTED

"Some may insist that regardless of anyone’s opinion of the lawfulness of a court’s action, all are duty bound, in the interest of order and law enforcement, to obey every court order. This is certainly true of ordinary citizens in most circumstances. Even where ordinary citizens are concerned, however, it is not hard to imagine situations in which they would be morally obliged to refuse a plainly unlawful court order. If, for instance, a judge issues an order requiring that at random an innocent person be shot when entering the courtroom, no person, including any officers of the court, is required to obey this order. In fact, like military personnel, they are duty bound to refuse. What is imaginable for ordinary citizens is even more conceivable when dealing with high government officials who are sworn to uphold the constitutions and laws that establish self government in the states, and protect the liberties of individuals and of the people. If a Federal judge orders the Governor of a state to take actions that he conscientiously believes violate the rights of an individual or group of individuals, no one would deny that he is duty bound to refuse such an order. If, for example, a Nazi regime somehow came to power at the Federal level, and by legislation or executive order initiated an effort to confine Jewish or black Americans to concentration camps, all state officials acting under state constitutions that protected individual rights would be oath bound to refuse unlawful Federal court orders that declared people to be of Jewish or black heritage and thereupon ordered their confinement."

IN NAZI GERMANY THEY SWORE OATHS TO THE FÜHRER – IN AMERICA, WE SWEAR ALLEGIANCE TO THE CONSTITUTION, NOT TO ARROGANT FEDERAL JUDGES

"What we clearly acknowledge to be possible and even morally obligatory in case of the violation of individual rights must be even more compelling when the case involves the violation of the rights of the whole people. Thus when a Federal judge issues an unlawful order that a state official conscientiously believes violates a fundamental and constitutionally protected right of the people of his state, that official must refuse the order that assaults their right just as he would refuse an order that violated the rights of individuals. It is of no consequence whether the unlawful order comes from one judge or many; from a lower court or the Supreme Court, it must be refused. Note that the wording here implies an obligation, not a choice. This is important; since it makes clear that the Court’s unlawful order places the state official in a situation where his substantive duty to the law conflicts with his formal obligation to obey a court order. A regime in which slavish observance of the empty forms of law substitutes for substantive respect for the real terms and requirements of the law clearly represents the demise of law as such."

ROY MOORE IS THE GUARDIAN OF LIBERTY, AS THE CONSTITUTION PROVIDES

"In the state of Alabama Judge Roy Moore has refused the unlawful order of Judge Myron Thompson since it represents a destructive violation of the right of the people of Alabama to decide how their government will or will not express their religious beliefs. This right of the people is the first one secured in the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights and it cannot be compromised without surrendering the moral foundations of republican liberty. Judge Thompson’s assault upon this right, and that of the entire Federal Judiciary for the last several decades, is not, therefore, a trivial threat to the liberty of the people. Judge Moore cannot obey the court’s order without surrendering it."

PRYOR AND HIS JUDICIAL COLLABORATORS SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

"Now, the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, as it applies the Bill of Rights to the states, lays an obligation upon state legislatures, officers and officials to refrain from actions that deprive the people of their rights. With respect to the first amendment therefore, it becomes their positive obligation to resist Federal encroachments that take away the right of the people to decide how their state governments deal with matters of religion. This obviously has a direct bearing on the case of Chief Justice Roy Moore in his confrontation with the abusive order of Judge Myron Thompson. His refusal of the order is not only consistent with his duty to the Alabama Constitution; it is his duty under the Constitution of the United States. Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, the eight Associate Justices of the Alabama Supreme Court and indeed any other state officials in Alabama who submit to the Judge’s order are, by contrast, in violation of the Federal Constitution, as well as their duty to the Constitution and people of Alabama. As a class, therefore, the citizens of Alabama are justified in bringing suit against them for their dereliction, and to seek reparation of the damage that has been done to their right under the US Constitution. Unfortunately, since the Federal Judiciary is the perpetrator of the assault against this right, how can they hope for a fair and unbiased judgment from any of the Federal Courts, including the Supreme Court?"

JUDICIAL AMBITION CREATES A HERD MENTALITY

"Lawyers will doubtless object on the grounds that the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed the jurisdiction of the Federal courts in this regard. Their partisan reverence for the Supreme Court’s opinions on this matter is wholly understandable, since a seat upon the Court, or upon the bench of one of the inferior Federal courts, usually represents the highest point toward which their ambition aspires. It is quite natural that they should support claims to a power that they may hope someday to wield. However, their insistence that others show the same reverence is repugnant to reason and common sense. In the matter of their Constitutional jurisdiction, as against the state courts or the other branches of the Federal government, the Federal Courts, including the Supreme Court, have a strong and direct interest. If judgment in these matters is left to them absolutely, it must always lead to a situation in which the judges and justices sit in judgment of their own cause. Our common sense joins the admonitions of the Founders of our Republic in warning us not to rely on such intrinsically biased judgments. The prospect of expanding their power may distract the Federal judges from the facts and merits of the case. This is and ever has been a weakness of our humanity."

ARTICLE III MUST BE INVOKED TO LIMIT FEDERAL COURT JURISDICTION

"This is why the US Constitution, after enumerating certain Cases over which the Federal Judiciary would have original jurisdiction, gave it appellate jurisdiction ‘with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.’ Therefore, the Federal Courts are not the ultimate judges of the boundaries of their own power. Final responsibility in this respect rests with the Congress. Once we take note of this fact, it also becomes clear that thinking about matters of jurisdiction at the Constitutional level cannot be considered the exclusive province of lawyers and judges. Though Congress has in some historical periods been composed of a plurality, or even a majority of lawyers, they could never have an exclusionary claim to membership in its ranks. The people can send to Congress whom they choose, including people from walks of life in no way related to the legal profession. It follows, therefore, that the Constitution assumes that people who are not lawyers will have to reason and make judgments about the proper scope and limits to be imposed upon the appellate jurisdiction of the Federal courts."

IT IS THE DUTY OF CONGRESS TO ACT

"The fact that the Supreme Court affirms the Federal Judiciary’s claim to jurisdiction over the state governments in matters pertaining to an establishment of religion does not, therefore, settle the issue. The Congress must review and oversee such a claim. Since the people choose the members of Congress, people at large, as they consider their election, are required to consider this claim as well. Our review thus far suggests that the Supreme Court’s affirmation of this claim of jurisdiction is contrary to the plain text of the Constitution; it usurps the right of the people in their respective states to decide their government’s stance on religion; it violates Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution by subverting the republican form of government with respect to this right; by aiming coercively to establish an agnostic regime of atheism at all levels of government, it destroys religious freedom for the people as a whole and dangerously subverts the Constitution’s prudent handling of matters pertaining to religion.

"The text of the Constitution easily allows us to see and understand the Federal Judiciary’s abuse of power and its usurpation of the right of the people in religious matters. It also provides a remedy for this abuse. The Congress must pass legislation that, in order to assure proper respect for the first phrase of the first amendment, excepts from the appellate jurisdiction of the Federal Courts those matters which, by the conjoint effect of the first and tenth amendments, the Constitution reserves to the states respectively and to the people." Source: Hon. Alan Keyes, 8/25/03

"The storm of moral crisis has descended upon Alabama. Among the most vital issues facing American jurisprudence are (1) whether our legal system may acknowledge the Higher Law of God as the source and measure of our laws; (2) whether the establishment clause of the First Amendment prohibits the State of Alabama from acknowledging God and His law as the moral foundation of law; (3) whether the State of Alabama (and the 49 other states) are distinctive and viable entities in the American constitutional system or whether they are merely closely supervised subdivisions of a national government; and (4) whether it is ever appropriate to disobey the order of a federal judge.

"All of these issues come together in the Alabama Ten Commandments case, often cited as Glassroth v. Moore."

GREEK GODDESSES ARE POLITICALLY CORRECT

"The symbolic portrayal could not be more graphic. In the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery stands a 5,280 lb granite monument depicting the Ten Commandments, with various quotations from America’s founding fathers on the monument’s four sides. Just a few blocks away, in front of the Federal Court House, stands a sculpture of Themis, the Greek goddess of law and justice. The Ten Commandments monument was financed entirely with private donations; Themis was paid for by federal funds. And yet, Themis is guarded by federal officers, while U.S. District Court Myron Thompson has ruled that the Ten Commandments monument must be removed from the Judicial Building rotunda."

LIBERAL SOPHISTS CONFUSE THE UNDISCERNING

"Recently I have noticed a shift in the debate. A few weeks ago the debate centered between those who say Judge Thompson is right and those who say Judge Thompson is wrong. Today, the debate seems to be between those who say Judge Thompson is wrong but his order must be obeyed, and those who say Judge Thompson is wrong and we must resist his order. …

CHIEF JUSTICE MOORE WAS DUTY BOUND TO DISOBEY

"It is often said that a public official, especially a State Supreme Court Chief Justice, has a higher duty than others to obey the orders of a federal court, that civil disobedience may be an option for a private citizen but not for Chief Justice Moore. The exact opposite is true. State officials have a heightened duty to resist unlawful federal authority, and when they do so it is called interposition.

" ‘Interposition. The doctrine that a state, in the exercise of its sovereignty, may reject a mandate of the federal government deemed to be unconstitutional or to exceed the power delegated to the federal government.

" ‘The concept is based on the 10^th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States reserving to the states powers not delegated to the United States. Historically, the doctrine emanated from Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dallas 419, wherein the state of Georgia, when sued in the Supreme Court by a private citizen of another state, entered a remonstrance and declined to recognize the court’s jurisdiction. Amendment 11 validated Georgia’s position.

" ‘Implementation of the doctrine may be peaceable, as by resolution, remonstrance or legislation, or may proceed ultimately to nullification with forcible resistance.

" ‘The Constitution does contemplate and provide for the contingency of adverse state interposition or legislation to annul or defeat the execution of national laws.’ In Re Charge to Grand Jury, Fed. Case No. 18,274 [2 Spr. 292]."

ALABAMANS DARE DEFEND THEIR RIGHTS

"Far from a radical doctrine, interposition is actually a middle ground position. Absolute submission to unlawful authority leads to and sanctions tyranny and oppression. Popular rebellion can lead to chaos and bloodshed. Interposition – lesser magistrates, state and local authorities, placing themselves between their people and the higher magistrates or federal authorities – is a moderate course that is less likely to result in either extreme." Source: Dr. John Eidsmoe (Professor, Thomas Goode Jones School of Law), 8/27/03

OUR CHRISTIAN PRESIDENT SPEAKS (THROUGH HIS SPOKESGIRL)

"Asked about President Bush's view of the controversy, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said: ‘It is important that we respect our laws and our courts. In some instances, the courts have ruled that the posting of the Ten Commandments is OK. In other circumstances, they have ruled that it's not OK. In either case, there is always opportunity for appeal of courts’ decisions.’ " Source: Kyle Winfield, Associated Press, Washington Times.com, 8/28/03

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of August 31, 2003

On Saturday, August 16, it was my privilege to be one of the principal speakers at a rally on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol in defense of Roy S. Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, in his determination to uphold the Constitution of the State of Alabama and the Constitution of the United States against Federal judges who would trample on both constitutions and deny the right of the people of Alabama to acknowledge God in public places. Other speakers at the event, in addition to Chief Justice Moore, included Rev. Jerry Falwell, Chancellor of Liberty University, and Dr. Alan Keyes.

CHIEF JUSTICE MOORE’S STALWART STAND MAY PROVIDE AN HISTORIC TURNING POINT

"This is a crucial moment in the history of the American republic. God may choose to use the unblemished character and undaunted courage of one faithful man to bring about a turning point in our jurisprudence and in our culture – – – back to Biblical morality and forward to a restoration of the Constitutional design and the system of liberty set forth by the Founding Fathers.

"The overarching question we face today is: ‘Who is America’s Sovereign?’ and ‘What is His law?’ Chief Justice Roy Moore knows the correct answers, but Federal Judge Myron Thompson flunks the test.

"The Holy Bible makes clear that Jesus Christ is our Sovereign. He is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Ruler of all nations.

SOVEREIGNTY AND ACCOUNTABILITY WERE UNDERSTOOD BY THE FOUNDING FATHERS

"America’s Founding Fathers understood and acted on this Biblical truth. In our Declaration of Independence, they proclaimed that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. And they enunciated the truth that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.

"Those who framed our great Constitution acknowledged that, as God’s creatures, we must hold the Federal government accountable to us, so that, as God’s stewards, we can be accountable to Him.

JUDICIAL RULINGS DO NOT AMEND THE CONSTITUTION

"That is our duty, and the Constitution recognizes the fact of the duty we owe our Creator and provides the means for us to do our duty. The provisions of the Constitution cannot lawfully be amended by judicial fiat or edicts from the bench. Indeed, Article V of the Constitution spells out the only authorized procedures for amending the Constitution.

"Nowhere does the Constitution authorize Federal judges to change even a single word in the document – – – or to disregard the plain meaning of its text.

ARTICLE VI PUTS FEDERAL JUDGES UNDER THE CONSTITUTION

"In fact, 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".

"All judicial officials, including Judge Myron Thompson and the judges of the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have sworn oaths which bind them to support the Constitution as it is written, not as they would personally prefer it to be written.

ANTI-MOORE FEDERAL JUDGES SEEK TO RESTRICT "FREE EXERCISE"

"Clearly, if the words of the framers are honored, Congress has no authority to restrict the establishment of Biblical religion in the State of Alabama – – – neither has any Federal judge such authority.

"Congress may not interfere with the free exercise of religion – – – nor may any Federal judge interfere with the free exercise of religion.

ANTI-MOORE FEDERAL JUDGES VIOLATE JURISDICTIONAL BOUNDARIES

"The Tenth Amendment stipulates that ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people’.

"No Federal court has had delegated to it any authority whatsoever over the placement of the Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Judicial Building.

ANTI-MOORE JUDGES ARE OATH-BREAKERS

"Judge Thompson has violated his oath of office by disregarding the words of our U.S. Constitution and by corruptly attempting to usurp the authority of the elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama. And so have the Federal judges on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals broken their oaths of office.

ANTI-MOORE JUDGES, IN CONTEMPT OF THE CONSTITUTION, SHOULD BE REMOVED

"Each of these Federal judges has shown contempt for the Constitution. That is why we hold them in contempt – – – and call upon them to resign or be removed from office.

"Each of them should be stripped of his robes as an example to others who, in their official capacities, seek to supplant Constitutional truths with their private anti-Christian prejudices.

CONGRESS SHOULD DISESTABLISH ALABAMA DISTRICT COURT AND 11^TH CIRCUIT

"The Constitution has remedies for misconduct by Federal judges.

"Article III, which places the judiciary in a position subordinate to the Article I Congress and the Article II Executive, provides that inferior courts such as those in which Judge Thompson and his Eleventh Circuit collaborators are installed are ordained and established by the Congress. By the same token, the Congress has the clear authority to remove the jurisdiction and to disestablish those courts which are arrogantly and presumptuously anti-Constitutional.

CONGRESS SHOULD REMOVE JUDGES WHO BETRAY THEIR OATHS TO THE CONSTITUTION

"Article III goes on to provide that Federal judges ‘shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour’. No reasonable person could argue that when Judge Thompson breaks his oath to the Constitution and when his rulings are sustained by judges of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals that any of these men have manifested ‘good behavior’, which, inter alia, was intended to mean fidelity to the Constitution and fidelity to their oaths.

"Today I call upon the President and members of Congress to initiate action for the removal of Myron Thompson from his position as judge of the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Alabama, and to likewise remove from office those members of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals who, in disregard of the clear language of the Constitution, upheld Judge Thompson’s ruling against the Ten Commandments.

BUSH SHOULD NAME ROY MOORE TO U.S. SUPREME COURT

"At the same time, I encourage President Bush and members of Congress to publicly express their approbation and support for the courageous example of the Honorable Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama.

ROY MOORE HAS HONORED HIS OATHS

"Judge Moore has kept his oath to the Constitution of Alabama and to the Constitution of the United States. He has upheld the law. He has obeyed his duty to God, to the people of Alabama, and to the citizens of the United States of America.

In my introductory remarks, I had high praise for Mrs. Kayla Moore and the Moore children for their steadfast support of Judge Moore.

BILL PRYOR HYPOCRITICALLY SIDES WITH 11^TH CIRCUIT ACTION AGAINST ROY MOORE

I also shared the phone number of the Attorney General of the State of Alabama, William Pryor, who, in Judas-like fashion, has indicated he will break his oath to the Alabama State Constitution as well as to the Constitution of the United States (despite his previous expressions of support for Chief Justice Moore) by seeking to enforce the illicit edict that the Ten Commandments monument not be displayed in the entrance hall to the Alabama judicial building.

I observed that the laws of God and the plain text of the Constitution of the United States cannot properly be set aside by any Federal judge or state official, and urged those present to contact Alabama Attorney General Pryor with that very message.

Emphasizing that "It is always disappointing when a politician or a judge (a politician in black robes) puts his personal ambitions ahead of his oath of office and his duty to his constituents," I added that "I am fed up with politicians who, with false pride, proclaim that they will set aside their personal principles – – – whether the issue is Roe v. Wade or the Ten Commandments – – – in order to appease "the powers that be" – – – who control their confirmation – – – or even their appointment.

PRAY THAT PRYOR WILL SET ASIDE AMBITION FOR PRINCIPLE

"Please join me in praying that Federal court candidate Pryor will subordinate his personal ambition to his sworn duty to defend the Alabama State Constitution and uphold the plain text and literal meaning of the Constitution of the United States."

It is interesting to note that a top campaign consultant for Chief Justice Moore’s principal opponent in the election which brought him to the highest judicial position in the State of Alabama, was none other than George W. Bush’s political counselor Karl Rove.

"Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor said [August 19] he will enforce a federal court’s order for removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building and that, ‘I expect it to be removed very soon.’

"While Pryor has said he would put his personal beliefs aside when dealing with the Ten Commandments issue, [August 19] marked his first remarks estimating an abbreviated time frame for removal of the monument that has polarized Alabama in the argument over the separation of church and state."

KARL ROVE HAS BEEN PRYOR’S POLITICAL CONSULTANT

" ‘My responsibility is to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law, and I will be doing my duty,’ Pryor said when asked about the monument after a speech at the Business Council of Alabama’s annual governmental affairs conference at a Florida Panhandle resort. …

"Pryor, a Mobile native who has seen his appointment for a lifetime seat on the Atlanta-based 11^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stymied by congressional Democrats, said it is his personal belief that the Ten Commandments can be displayed constitutionally. Despite that view, however, he will keep the state in compliance with the order to remove the monument, he said."

PRYOR EMULATES JUDAS

" ‘I don’t want to speculate on how or exactly when it is going to happen,’ Pryor said [August 19]. ‘I will be advising the appropriate state officials on how to proceed, and I expect they will do so.’ …

"The 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals, for the second time [August 19], rejected a plea by Moore to stay the removal order until the U.S. Supreme Court can rule on his petition call for it to intervene." Source: George Talbot, al.com, 8/20/03