October 29, 2001
Alabamians support Judge Moore
___By Sean Reilly
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--In principle, a solid majority of Alabamians favors a wall of separation between church and state. In practice, however, an even larger majority doesn't think Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore jumped that wall by erecting a monument to the Ten Commandments on state property, the results of a new poll suggest.
___More than three-fourths of those queried in the Mobile Register-University of South Alabama poll said they approve or strongly approve of Moore's decision to place the 4-foot granite sculpture in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery.
___That resounding show of support came even as 62 percent agreed that government and organized religion should be kept separate and more than half said the current degree of distance is about right or needs to be widened.
___Those seemingly contradictory results drew equally diverse explanations.
___Robert Varley, a Montgomery lawyer who works with the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said respondents might have answered differently had they been asked about support for a monument on state property honoring the Koran, the principal Muslim holy book.
___But at the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative public-interest law firm in Mobile, attorney Stuart Roth said Alabamians may share an understanding of church and state separation closer to what he believes the nation's founders intended.
___To them, Roth said, the Constitution's ban on a state-supported religion was meant to avoid the creation of a taxpayer-funded church under the auspices of the government. To claim that the Ten Commandments monument establishes a state religion is "absolute nonsense," Roth said.
___In a written reply to questions from the Mobile Register, Moore spokesman Scott Barnett appeared to take a similar view.
___The survey results reflect "a more accurate view of our rights under ... the U.S. Constitution than do the myriad of editorials written in the major newspapers of the state of Alabama," Barnett's statement said.
___Although Moore believes in keeping church and state separate, it continues, "that does not mean separating God or Christian principles from our government."
___Moore secretly arranged for the monument's installation this summer. About 4 feet tall and weighing 5,280 pounds, the sculpture depicts the Ten Commandments and 14 other quotations about God and law. No public money was spent on the monument, according to Moore's office.
___To critics, the monument might also be seen as Moore's homage to the force that propelled his remarkable ascent to Alabama's top judicial post.
___As an Etowah County circuit judge, Moore was little known until the ACLU sued in 1994 to force him to remove a hand-carved plaque of the Ten Commandments from his Gadsden courtroom. The effort eventually failed on a technicality, but Moore used his fame as the "Ten Commandments" judge to coast to victory in last year's race for state Supreme Court chief justice.
___"If nothing else, it's good politics, and this (the poll finding) proves that he's a good politician," said Keith Nicholls, director of the USA Polling Group, which conducted the survey. "If you're talking about pandering to the masses in Alabama, he was on the right track."
___Barnett responded that the monument's only purpose is to acknowledge God.
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