Sunday, March 25, 2012

Alabama Jurist Roy Moore, the Ten Commandments, and the Rule of Law

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is running for the same judicial post he was expelled from ten years ago.

His crime that led to his force resignation: posting the Ten Commandments in the Montgomery Court House, violating federal statues barring religious iconography in public buildings.

Breaking the rule of law with greater discretion, and greater heedlessness, than Moses the law-giver, Moore became an unwitting idolater of another different "golden calf": Christian extremism. His fanaticism plays very well to conservative voters who hype a contrarian religious fervor, yet do the voters of Alabama really want to renew the authority of a theocon who resisted the rule of law?

Despite Moore's fervent entreaties, the United States is not a Christian nation, and his overt insubordination of legality, in imposing the position of the Ten Commandment, is all the more ironic for the blatant lawlessness of commandeering the commandments against the commands of his judicial superiors.
Instead of the law of Moses, Moore ought to meditate on Paul the Apostle's exhortation to his followers:

"Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,

"To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men." (Titus 3: 1-2)

Statesmen who honor their superiors without flaunting their private religious and flouting the rule of law win greater respect than willful yet futile usurpation of power in the name of righteous causes.

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