The Smug Baldy Speaks

Just when you thought people couldn’t get any stupider - they surprise you. Case in point is the continued public demand for the theocratic drivel from former Judge Roy Moore. Moore was forcibly removed from his position as Chief Justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court in November after his refusal to obey the order of a federal court to remove the 2-ton granite monument depicting a Protestant version of the 10 commandments in the Alabama supreme court rotunda in 2003. Moore is now the darling of many conservative Christians throughout the U.S., thanks to his courageous stand for his right to “acknowledge God”, nevermind the fact that most supreme beings get along fine whether you acknowledge them or not - being omnipotent and all that. On his new website, Moral Law, Inc, apparently the story continues. The headline today: Their collective noses are out of joint. It seems like there’s quite a lot of that going around in the circles of right-wing power.

Apparently, the newly installed Judge for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Bill Pryor, has blocked a friend of the court brief by Moore’s foundation concerning the constitutionality of the Cobb County, Georgia science textbook disclaimer. Pryor is one of the conservative federal judges confirmed by the US Senate after Democrats agreed to stop filibusters that blocked their nominations. OK, that’s not really news. The foundation filed a brief, the court denied it. Story over, right. Wrong.

It turns out this particular 11th Circuit Court Judge, Bill Pryor, has crossed paths with Roy Moore before. Pryor, in his role as Alabama Attorney General, was the one who had the courage to stand up to conservative Alabama Christians (which accounts for about 70% of the Alabama population) and removed Moore from office back in 2003.

But this little spat isn’t personal (let’s give all parties the benefit of that particular doubt). That’s just where the kookiness begins, however.

In the amicus brief, the Moral Law Foundation makes the claim, “The First Amendment was intended to protect religion, not foster animus toward it; but the district court’s departure from the constitutional text resulted in open discrimination against religion and its adherents.”

This claim is clearly false – both in its propositions as well as its conclusion:

1. Proposition: The first amendment was intended to protect religion.

WRONG. There is really no such thing as “religion� as posited in this statement. Here, the (a)Moral Law folks are not talking about religion so much as their own radical version of it. Regardless of the intent of the word, the First Amendment doesn’t say anything about protecting “religion�. It does, however, say a lot about protecting American Citizens from tyranny:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There it is – congress makes laws, congress cannot make a law “respecting the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereofâ€?. So while the folks at (a)Moral Law clearly enjoy constitutional protection in their practice of their preferred brand of faith, they clearly got the intent of the first amendment backwards. Rather than protecting “religion” - whatever that is, the First Amendment protects me and you and Roy Moore, and every other American. It grants us the right to freely exercise our faith, and guarantees that we never have to kneel at the altar of The Official Religion of the United States of America. “Religion” on its own is a concept, and it fends quite well for itself in the the marketplace of ideas, thank you very much.

2. Proposition: The court departed from the constitutional text in its ruling.

WRONG. You can read the decision yourself here. Justice Moore knows better than this. All rulings take several sources of information into consideration – with the text of the appropriate constitutional amendment(s) being among them. This ruling very clearly states that the 11th circuit court used the text of the first and 14th amendments (among other things such as testimony, evidence, and prior case law) to arrive at its decision. Interestingly, the court ruled that the board of education did not act with “the purpose of promoting or advancing religion� when it voted to place the sticker in the textbooks. This was a small victory for the anti-evolutionists, in that it shows one way to get their foot in the door – promoting religion through purely secular means may be acceptable to a federal court.

3: Conclusion: The decision, “resulted in open discrimination against religion and its adherents�.

WRONG. There is no way that anyone who would not otherwise already be predisposed toward anti-religious sentiment would suddenly become so as a result of this decision. Granted, it seems like it’s a big issue to the players involved, but this is the sort of story that the majority of Americans ignore – to most of us it’s just another example of an attempt by extremists to force their viewpoint on the rest of us that was quashed by the courts. Now pass the pinto beans.

And let’s examine this vast, anti-religious discrimination that the (a)Moral Law folks decry.

Let’s see – about 90% of Americans are religious. Roughly 70% of religious Americans describe themselves as Christian. If I didn’t know anything about the (a)Moral Law foundation, I would be able to find quite early in my search about them that they’re, not surprisingly, a Christian group. So, are they seriously claiming that single largest and most powerful lobby in the United States – Christian Americans – which accounts for roughly 65% of all American citizens is somehow the victim of discrimination? That’s rich. American Christians are one of the most powerful political and economic forces on the planet, with millions of active, devout members. Among all political groups, it’s the American Christian alone that wears power like a well-tailored suit – for good reason. It is from this group of citizens that we tend to choose our leaders and representatives at all levels of government. This single group has populated the halls of power in the United States of America for two centuries. That’s not likely to change because of some ruling against a dumb, pro-religious sticker in Georgia.

Discrimination? I think the real issue is that way out there on the fringe of the Christian tradition, we’ve got some folks like Roy Moore and his (a)Moral Law foundation who want to remake the world in their collective image, and they get themselves quite worked up when the rest of us less godly patriots don’t overlook their lust for power as we fail to automatically kowtow before them.

You guys really want to make some moral laws? How about you start working for some of that social justice and fight against the upside-down tax system in your home state of Alabama? Or maybe really eliminating the racist language ratified in the Alabama State Constitution? Or, how’s this? Just shut up about what you think activist judges would do in Alabama if you accept the fact that all Alabama children have a god-given right to an education. They do, and the activist judge Roy Moore and the rest of you should be ashamed of yourselves for whining about the money it’s not costing anyone to not educate Alabama’s children.

P.S.: There are no images of American Flags, the Great Seal of the United States of America, or any other imagery on the moral law website that would lead one to believe the owners are American. Other than a big picture of Roy Moore and his friend, the big rock that is his claim to fame, the site is pretty dull looking.