Mike Moser "I Say" Published Sept. 5, 2003

Ten Commandments stance; is it the right fight?

It is a dangerous thing to debate religion, whether in the media or in the courts or across the coffee table. Nearly everyone has an opinion and the brouhaha over the granite display of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building has sparked debate in all reaches of the United States.

You have got to love Alabama politics. Just when one is lured into thinking the Heart of Dixie state has matured in its political causes, the state on the backs of one or two people takes a giant step. Whether that step is forward or backward depends on your point of view.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore installed the 2-ton granite monument to what he called the basic canons upon which the laws of our nation are based. Many objective historians agree. Others debate that the view that America was founded on religious motives and principles is twisting the true intention of our founding fathers.

When in Alabama over the weekend I found it interesting to read in the Birmingham Post-Herald that Justice Moore, sculptor of the monument, Richard Hahnemann, and Moore's attorney, Stephen Melchoir, all have their names chiseled into the granite monument.

Their names are chiseled into the rock right beside the copyright symbol. As columnist James L. Evans, pastor of Crosscreek Baptist Church of Pelham, AL, questioned, "What does this mean?"

A copyright, according to Evans' column, is "a proprietary right designed to give the creator of a work the power to control the work's reproduction, distribution and public display or performance, as well as adaptation to other forms."

Does this mean he plans to sell little replicas of the Ten Commandments monument? I don't know, but why else would these men go to the trouble to copyright the work? I could understand the sculptor wanting to protect his labor, but why Justice Moore?

Only Justice Moore and the other two men know and since Moore has been suspended by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary, he isn't talking. That panel will hear an ethics complaint to determine whether Moore is guilty of violating his judicial responsibility by disobeying a federal order.

Surely they have copyrighted the work and not the commandments for all of us who believe know that the Ten Commandments were commissioned by God and not man. Moses just happened to be the messenger, and that they were given by God to all of us.

As Evans wrote, "I just know I would feel a lot better if he at least copyrighted the monument in the name of the legitimate owner. Of course, that would have limited how the judge could use the monument, or whether there would be a graven monument at all."

In my small mind I have to wonder what Justice Moore would do to an attorney or a defendant who defied one of his court orders? I would have more sympathy for the cause if the leader of the movement wasn't a state judge in defiance of a federal court's order.

I know U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson's reputation from when he worked in the Alabama Attorney General's Office in the 1970s and I know him to be a man of character and respectability who would not have issued his ruling to remove the monument from government property without due deliberation. He was one of the first black attorneys to serve in the state office.

It was also interesting to me that not all clergy in Alabama are embracing the judge's stance. Frank Savage, director of education and communication for the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham, told the newspaper, "I don't believe taking the Commandments out of the rotunda at the state judicial building is violating a law of God.

"It's a personal preference, and it may be my preference, but it's nothing I would die for."

He added that he fears Moore's actions will further alienate mainstream politics from conservative Christians in society.

The Rev. Thompson Brown, a retired Episcopal priest, told the newspaper, "I don't think the church needs the state to validate what it believes to be some governing principles for the way people live."

And three black Baptist ministers from Birmingham wrote a statement to local media criticizing Moore for likening his dispute with the federal courts to the Civil Rights movement.

Whether or not the posting of the Ten Commandments furthers our country in the eyes of God is open for debate. I prefer to think that God would rather we post the Ten Commandments in our hearts. Now that would change the nation.

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Mike Moser is the editor of the Crossville Chronicle. His column is published periodically on Fridays.