Alabama Judge Refusing to Remove the Ten Commandments from a State Building–Truth!
Summary of eRumor:
The eRumor encourages support for Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore who was ordered by a U.S. appeals court to remove The Ten Commandments from a state judicial building.
The judge has refused to remove it.
The Truth:
The story is true.
Judge Moore was suspended from his post and charged with six ethics violations for refusing to remove the granite monument of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court building by August 20, 2003.
On November 13, 2004, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary expelled Moore from his position as Chief Justice.
It all began in 1995 when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued Moore for his practice of opening court sessions in prayer and for a hand-carved wooden plaque of the Ten Commandments that hangs in his courtroom.
They said it violates the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution.
At the time, Moore was a state circuit court judge but he was later elected as the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.
In 2001, he had a 5,280-pound granite monument of The Ten Commandments placed in the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court.
Moore says no taxpayer money was used to purchase or place the monument.
In October of 2001, the Alabama ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suit demanding that the granite monument be removed.
A U.S. District court judge ordered Moore to remove the monument, but he refused saying that to do so would violate his oath of office because he has vowed to uphold the law, the foundation of which is The Ten Commandments.
Then the case went to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ordered the August 20 removal date and threatened fines of $5,000 per day for the first week with that amount doubling each week thereafter.
last updated 11/13/03