Alabama meets order to remove monument

Christian Century, Sept 20, 2003

Alabama is in compliance with a federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments from a prominent position in the state judicial building, a federal judge said August 29. The two-and-a-half-ton monument that once stood in the building's rotunda now resides in a locked storage room.

Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was suspended from duties on the bench shortly after his fellow justices ordered compliance with the federal order, said he intends to appeal the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Governor Bob Riley, a Republican who supported Moore's display of the monument but not his defiance of the order, is hopeful about the appeal to the high court. "I will do everything in my power to assist the judge in the briefs to the Supreme Court to see it is placed right back where it came from."

Attorney General Bill Pryor of Alabama and plaintiffs in the lawsuit that challenged the display informed U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson of the monument's removal during a conference call on August 29. "We withdrew our motion for contempt," said Richard Cohen, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. Cohen is one of the lawyers who sued to challenge the display. "I think it's a great day for the principles of religious freedom and the rule of law," Cohen stated.

Cohen said protesters, who have bemoaned what they see as an erosion of religious rights, have twisted the intent of the lawsuit. The action was about protecting religious freedom, he said. "The case was never an attack on religion. Justice Moore wanted to promote one religion to the exclusion of others," he said.--RNS