Conviction Cast in Stone

Roy Moore has done it again.

On Tuesday, in the wee hours of the morning when nobody was looking, Moore and a couple of workmen sneaked a 5,280-pound granite monument to the Ten Commandments into the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Moore didn’t ask anyone’s permission, but he didn’t have to. The country judge who rose to prominence by hanging a Ten Commandments plaque on his courtroom wall is now the court’s chief justice, the top judge in Alabama.

“I’m the highest legal authority in the state, and I wanted it there,” he said. “Doesn’t it look great?”

It’s hard to miss. A 4-by-4-foot chunk of rock rising up from the lobby floor like a mini-tomb, the monument is inscribed with the biblical commandments and etched with wise words from the nation’s Founding Fathers, all referencing God. Moore paid for it with “private contributions,” he said, and didn’t tell any of the other eight justices.

He even secretly dug up blueprints of the Supreme Court building to find a secure beam to support the monument.

“Could you imagine if that thing fell through the floor and killed somebody?” he said in an interview Tuesday.

Predictably, the monument has caused a stir. Several Christian groups immediately voiced support, while the Alabama chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union indicated it might sue on grounds that the monument violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

“Moore’s basically taken a state building, established his version of religion and said if you don’t like it, tough,” said ACLU spokesman Joel Sogol. “Besides that being illegal, what could a public official do that’s more divisive?”

According to similar cases in Indiana and Kentucky, the Ten Commandments can be displayed in a public building only as part of a larger historical exhibit, Sogol said.

But such arguments failed before. In 1995, the ACLU petitioned for Moore to take down a homemade wooden Ten Commandments from his courtroom wall in northern Alabama. The state’s governor at the time, Fob James Jr., threatened to send in the National Guard to protect it. Thousands of people rallied in Montgomery, the capital, and after several years, a judge allowed the plaque to remain.

The controversy catapulted Moore’s name recognition into Alabama’s stratosphere and helped him beat his rival, 55% to 45%, in the election for chief justice in November.

In Alabama, there’s no underestimating the popularity of religion--and defiance. This is the state where school science books must carry a sticker saying evolution is just a theory.

Recently, there’s been talk of Moore, 54, running for governor as a Republican candidate.

“But I’m not really much of a political aspirator,” he said. “See, I can’t even say it.”

Moore enjoys his new job, he said, and that was evident as he rocked in a leather chair in a spacious office overlooking Montgomery and its myriad church spires.

But while his chambers may have changed, the judge hasn’t.

The first thing he did when a visitor stepped into his office Tuesday was hand him an autographed book called “Our Legal Heritage.”

“You see, God is our higher moral authority,” and he began quoting lengthy passages of the U.S. Constitution.