Thursday, August 28, 2003

Moore or Less

For those of you who have been distracted by the crush of multifarous realities, Alabama state supreme court’s Chief Justice the hon. Roy Moore has a 2.5 ton statement to make.  Two years or so ago he caused to have erected a privately donated monument to the ten commandments in the rotunda of the State Supreme Court building.  His rationale was to recognize and pay homage to the basic judeo-christian moral framework upon which our society today has been crafted, as further described here.  Moore may be speaking for many Alabamians - he was popularly elected in a landslide, having already achieved some renown for his display of a carved wooden “ten commandments” plaque in his courtroom in a lower court.  The rotunda monument, however, was immediately criticized by liberals and libertarians, and the ACLU brought suit in federal court to have it removed.  That suit was ultimately successful and the 11th circuit USDC ordered the monument removed.  Judge Moore was suspended by the Alabama Board of Judicial Inquiry on August 25 for refusing to comply with that order.  He and his supporters are engaged in ongoing demonstrations, even as the monument was removed yesterday from the courthouse rotunda.

My extended rant on this subject continues below.

This matter raises many complex questions of jurisdiction and federal-state comity.  These are discussed far more thoroughly than I could hope to here.  I’m particularly pleased to point out this site because it is written by my old con law and legal theory professor, who is a very nice guy and an absolute genius with regard to constitutional issues. 

My point, or the one I feel compelled to make myself, anyway, concerns Judge Moore’s rationale - the idea that our society is founded on the moral precepts of biblical teachings.  I would readily admit that these religious codes are important to our society - as were Hammurabi’s (which predate the ten commandments by, in some estimates, about 1000 years), the Roman civil code, and Greek principles of ethics and social structure. But whatever.  None of these embody the principles on which this country was founded.  The founders looked to god, but not to the bible - the constitutional framers being notorious freethinkers.  Hence, the constitution contains no biblical quotes or references, and the first amendment thereto prohibits the state from supporting or impairing any religious institution. 

But let’s go back a bit further in our continental experience.  The framers wrote as they did because they sought to articulate the common sentiment of their constituency - a sentiment which emphasized the rule of law, natural freedoms, representation and respect.  These principles are in turn derived from the founding philosophies of the various original colonies - which were established when this continent was a haven for those facing religious or political persecution at home.  Puritans, Catholics, even Quakers found refuge here from heavy-handed hegemonies; here they could believe and worship as they saw fit without the intrusion of the state (in the person of the king) to correct or upbraid them.  Yes, many of those pioneers intollerantly denied these freedoms and liberties to others - but they were on the right track, and over time we have slowly learned to embrace these principles more and more firmly so that today even women and persons of african descent are considered fully human - and we (or I, anyway) have trouble conceiving of things any other way.  But our founders lived in a time of prejudice and oppression, and had to forge their new free world out of, and in spite of, millenia of historical tradition to the contrary.  They pointed us toward our goal and trusted us to stay the course.  It has taken us too long to get where we are, to turn back now. 

And I do consider Judge Moore’s intrasigent prosletyzing to be tantamont to turning back from hard-fought progress.  The worlds from which our ancestors historically escaped to this land overwhelmingly paid explicit homage to the ten commandments and the subordination of men to God - all of Europe and latin America fostered state-supported religion and integrated god into the affairs of men more intimately even than Judge Moore has proposed.  If that was what our forebears wanted, they’d have stayed where they were.  But they wanted freedom, so they came here.  Freedom has been hard to define and a damn long time coming, but now that we have a decent slice of it we must jealously guard against it’s being whittled away, even as we mobilize to increase our share.  Judge Moore, if that stone tablet really represents your law, you should not be a judge in this country.  We use different laws. Go somewhere where god is not decreed forever to be separated from the state, and leave this country to those who continue to honor its founding values: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

And let us not overlook the fact, which I rarely see discussed, that there are several different versions of the ten commandments.  When Judge Moore chose “his” version of the ten commandments, he was not honoring a judeo-christian heritage - he was advancing his own version (or King James’) of “holy writ” over and against those of his neighbors who read different versions.  His sanctimony is most troublesome because it is, even on its face, without premise or principle - he excludes millions of his supposed “brothers” with his egocentric belief that the stone tablets are monoliths, when they are in fact significantly various.  And if there is such variation even in the supposedly immutable word of god, how can he claim the superiority of one version without dishonoring the faiths and traditions that follow the others?  Or don’t they count?  Or are they simply wrong?  Evil?  Damned?  Or are the others right, and Judge Moore is the one facing the brimstone?  I don’t know who, if anyone, is actually “right” in this aspect of the controversy - but I do gravely distrust anyone who claims to be.

You expressed your feelings with much, much less cursing and ranting than I would have.  Which I suppose is fine.

Only here.  When the fateful day arrives and we get each other good and drunk I might share the other half of my rant.  It consists primarily of obscene epithets and anatomical impossibilities.  You’d like it.

You articulate this much better than I did by saying to the husband; “fucking freaks”.  Although I was more succint. :-)

fucking freaks.

is there, like, a “rant of the month” award i can nominate you for?  very, very well put.

i’d like to stand behind you, wearing a leather jacket and gently smacking my palm with a crowbar, while you say this.

And I’ll be Bryan’s side-kick.

dude.  you rock.

I wish that I could express my thoughts on the subject as well as you just did.

I grow to distrust fundamentalist more every day.

I’m so relieved that pigheadedness is recognized as such - thanks for the kind words on the writing, but when someone is so full of shit it’s hard not to smell it and tell it.

Excellent -and eloquent- post. Thank you.

okay, i got the idea of the expand button now, but my hair trigger knee jerk reactionism is still getting the better of me.  our legal system is based more on plato and cicero’s concepts of the republic, hamurabi’s code and iriquois tradition of confederacy and less on the bible.  when the founding fathers mentioned god they were referring to a vague creator figures, not the yod-he-va-he, jehovah, cum jesus christ.  most of our founding rabble rousers were in fact deists (sort of like an agnostic) and not firm believers in the christian bible.  matter of fact jefferson edited his own version of the bible and removed all reference to god and christ.  but more importantly...it is fucking alabama, who cares?  have you ever been to dixie?  i thought i fell back in time 100 years when i was there.  polite people but definitely not the most socially eveolved group i have ever met.

Jeremy you are too right - I didn’t get into the details but they are right out there for *intelligent* people to recognize.  But I do concern myself with the goings-on in Alabama as they can set precedent nationally and can give moral vindication and support to a segment of society that I think is entirely to satisfied with itself already.  I’m glad it’s getting shut down down there before the “movement” has a chance to spread to high-impact states.

excellent - this is a very well thought out post that reflects what i’ve been thinking, but says it a lot better then i ever could! :)

i have a slightly different take on this.  perhaps it’s because i live, by choice, in one of those nominally roman catholic countries that “foster(s) state-supported religion” (or did until 1905) and where actually society is as far from its religious origins as it’s possible to be.  in fact, fundamentalist islam is far more present in this society than even the laxest christianity.

or perhaps it’s because, by choice or by calling, i have converted to roman catholicism and have a growing appreciation for the world described by the church and its teachings.

it would be idealistic - in a way i, for all my faith and hope, am not - to say the world would be better if state-supported religion were the norm. it might be idealistic to say we’d all be better off if god were more integrated into our lives, but this i do believe.

i also happen to think it’s naïve to claim separation of church and state as one of the founding freedoms of the u.s.a. the settlers came from a society of religious oppression. let’s remember what that meant, for them - it meant you had to be anglican and worship as the king did or you got thrown into jail or tossed into a boat and shipped to australia. when they wanted freedom of religion they wanted the freedom to practice and worship as they believed, as catholics, as quakers, as jews, without having a monarch tell them their god was wrong and they would be punished for following him. they wanted other freedoms as well, of course.

let’s not confuse the issue. freedom of religion and freedom from religion are two very different things. i’m not saying i agree with moore’s actions or his motivations, or the symbolism of forcing god into a state structure, but i’m not sure i entirely agree with your rant, either.  (nicely written, though.)

Romy we may be closer to each other on this than you think.  I think the First Amendment addresses your dichotomy (freedom of vs freedom from religion) by being written in the alternative - “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” I think the founders came here, as you suggest, to escape oppression and to live freely according to their beliefs.  They didn’t want anyone telling them which god to worship or how to do it.  As the colonies grew and developed political significance and power, these purely religious sentiments gave rise to affiliated political sentiments - no taxation without representation, no billeting of troops in the home, etc.  But the fountainhead was to be free - to do as one thought fit, and from compulsion to do otherwise than one in fact believed was proper.  Plymouth was the first experiment, but I think Maryland was more the archetype - a place set aside, nominally, for Catholics, but which actually welcomed people of all faiths.  When one walks into a courtroom where, perhaps, a school prayer case is to be heard, you in your kipa or in the traditional garb of muslim women, and you are confronted with King James’ version of the ten commandments, you are not free from the court’s religion - nor would I, for one, feel unfettered in my own practices.  The court has chosen sides.

It’s ironic: the US was founded in part in response to state-sponsored religion and the intollerances that ensue therefrom, but those with the spirit to make such a radical break were by definition the zealots and extremists.  This rests our national identity an inherently fractured foundation.  But I see it as our national duty to mend those fractures, as best we can, even if it takes centuries - which it has - and to do so with respect for the hunger for freedom that drove pioneers across the oceans, rather than the theology that justified extermination of nonchristians and the dehumanization of nonbelievers.

There is a very apt and somewhat humorous column about this issue reprinted at

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0828-09.htm

It exposes many contradictions. Also w/r/t Jeremy’s post above, I recently finished a book of essays by Gore Vidal, and in one he claims that even the religious references in the Declaration of Independence were not Jefferson’s original writing, but added at the “request” of the Congress. Is anyone familiar with this?

Gratuitous quote:
“We’ll try to remain serene and calm
when Alabama gets The Bomb!”

That’s it. I am packing your bags right now and have already bought your plane ticket to Alabama. Judge Moore’s office says his schedule is full, but I’ve got a plan to whittle out some time for you to verbally squash him. Don’t concern yourself with the details (or the man with the tractor and shotgun who will be meting you at the airport.)