By Bill Britt
Alabama Political Reporter
Judge Roy Moore looks to return to the Alabama Supreme Court and once again take his place as chief justice.
Lately, news headlines have featured what some might consider Moore’s more controversial views on gay marriage. If the headline reads, “Moore says gay marriage will destroy country,” level heads should want to know why Moore thinks the way he does. In a recent interview we asked Moore to give us his thinking on many issues, gay marriage being one.
“Our country is founded on homes and family. It is the people of the United States to form a more perfect union. It is not we the government leaders, it is not we the military, it is not we the pastors, it is we the people and people come from families,” says Moore.
The former Chief Justice believes that the family unit is the bedrock of society, while understanding that “there are people who have had hardship that have been without families. But it is all based upon homes. It’s based the family unity.”
Moore says that there are those who want to “redefine marriage.” But Moore thinks there is a great principle on the line, “It is not about uniting two homosexuals. It is about the destruction of an institution ordained by God,” said Moore.
He says that the government has no authority in the area of marriage. “If a person understands the Constitution, they would understand why there is nothing in there about marriage. It was outside the governments jurisdiction,” Moore said.
He believes there is very little legal basis for the attempts by some federal and state judges to interfere into marriage rights.
“Marriage was called sacred by the Supreme Court,” said Moore. “It is the most serious and sacred contract of all. Now, 44 of the 50 state have recognized that marriage is between and man and a woman.” He also points out that in the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, “The United States government through laws passed by Congress have recognized marriage as being between a man and a woman.”
This is the same in Alabama under Constitutional Amendment 774.
Moore said, “So, when I am talking about marriage I am not only talking about what has come from God, but also the law.”
He says that when “something so basic as marriage is destroyed we can expect to face consciences and those consciences will be destructive to our country.”
Moore’s belief in God shapes his thoughts and actions, the way he views life, the US Constitution and Alabama law as well.
It was recently reported that Moore said that the people of Alabama were returning him to the position that he was wrongly removed from in 2003.
“It is important the realize that the controversy was not about the Ten Commandments, a rock or a monument. It was about the sovereignty of God,” said Moore.
Moore says he believes freedom of conscience is God-given and that this is something that has been recognized by the highest court in the land, “I am quoting the Supreme Court from 1931 and 1946, in US vs. Macintosh and Gerard vs. the United States, our freedom to believe what we want is given to us from God.”
He says that the laws of the United States were not meant to be separate from Scripture and the Ten Commandments.
But that there are things outside the prerogative of government, “The first four commandments of the Ten Commandments gives the relationship between man and God, that is outside of [government] interference.
Moore says that what the federal court did in 2003 was “a violation of the constitution of the United States under the freedom of religion clause to say we could not acknowledge God.”
He believes the government had no right to come to “Alabama and tell us we can’t acknowledge God—and that is what the federal court said in its opinion—they violated not only the constitution of the United States but every scriptural precept on which it is based.
Moore, believes our country has come to the point it is today because of a “lack of understand of the constitution and the scriptures on which it is based.”
He says as a nation we have “simply failed to realize the relationship between God and our law, even though the organic law in the Declaration of Independence states that in the very first sentence.”
Moore recounts that, “The first thing the Congress did after they adopted the first amendment was to ask the President to declare a day of thanksgiving and prayer by ‘acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.’”
Moore says that when the Founding Fathers adopted the First Amendment with the Freedom of Religion Clause,
“The first thing they did was acknowledge God. Today, they turn that law around and use it to say you can’t.”
Moore contends, “Who know better what they wrote the judges today, or the thousands of judges which preceded them and never felt that way and the people that wrote the amendment?”
In our next installment, Judge Moore discusses, the race before him, funding for the court and the future of the state under Republican control.
