One so amazingly conservative that the conservative Alabama Supreme Court (engineered by Rove) immediately removed the monument upon Moore’s suspension before he was removed from his position permanently. Bill Pryor, a controversial judicial nominee by the Bush administration, agreed Moore had to go because he was disobeying the rule of law.
Apparently the rule of law isn’t too important around the Illinois Review these days as they approvingly link to Roy Moore disagreeing with Obama’s criticism of Moore during the controversy over the monument.
They seem to think the state should be promoting a state religion and if you read Moore’s silly writings on the subject he argues that the founders disagreed because most of the states at the time of the adoption of the Constitution had state religions.
Which is great, but ignores the 14th Amendment which radically reshaped the Constitution to include the Bill of Rights protections against state government action as well as federal government action. The federal government was clearly prohibited from establishing a state religion in the 1st Amendment and as such, the 14th Amendment extended that prohibition to state governments. Arguing that the restrictions on state action are the same as prior to the passage of the 14th amendment is incredibly obtuse.
Equally silly is the argument that government sponsored faith displays aren’t establishing a religion. A very clear example is the monument Moore created which utilized the Protestant 10 Commandments instead of the Catholic 10 Commandments. It is endorsing a specific faith over others or a lack of faith through the state’s actions.
One might argue, as some of the commentors on Illinois Review did, that Obama’s explanation was incorrect. I am reliably informed his explanation in actual Constitutional Law classes goes into the details of the 14th Amendment, but on town hall meeting, one generally doesn’t put everyone to sleep with long explanation of how the 14th Amendment radically changed the Constitution.
It’s not his fault that high school government classes aren’t teaching such basic concepts very well.
What Fran left out was that Moore and her former employer Alan Keyes are close and Moore is just about as relevant as Keyes–the guy who showed a giant mock-up of the 10 Commandments around the state. Keyes, the Catholic, used the Protestant version as did Moore:
I always wanted someone to ask him why he was showing the Protestant version, but he was so busy exploding, no one got the chance.
Cross posted at Illinois Reason