The Little Brown Reader

Thou Shalt Not Pray

I'm cleaning up some stuff that's been dogging my desktop for a long time. Like this well-written article on the constitutional issues behind the Ten Commandments in the Alabama courthouse and related situations.

Thou Shalt Not Pray

Does the Constitution hate God?
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Thursday, August 21, 2003, at 3:21 PM PT

One hesitates to spill one more drop of ink over Chief Justice Roy Moore - the demagogue judge who heads the Alabama Supreme Court and who -- as of midnight last night -- is in violation of a federal court order to remove a 5,000-pound monument to the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the Alabama State Judicial Building. Moore, who's made a career of confusing his bench with a pulpit, has evinced such contempt for the rule of law, the Constitution, and the rest of this nation that he's unworthy of another word. There is, however, a constitutional problem highlighted by Moore's conduct and by the popular support he's garnered in some circles. A sentiment expressed frequently by elected officials, religious leaders, and even the occasional U.S. Supreme Court justice is that the principle of separating church and state has morphed into unbridled state hostility toward the church. The founders of this country were, for the most part, deeply religious men. Would they, like Moore, object to the ways in which religion has been chased out of the public square?

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Full column

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: L5
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 20%