Dr. Richard Land Says Judge Moore Should Stand Down

Baptist Leader: Alabama’s Chief Justice Should Stand Down
By Chad Groening – September 2, 2003

(AgapePress) – A Southern Baptist leader says unless Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is ready to start a revolution, he shouldn’t continue to defy federal authorities over the moving of the Ten Commandments monument in Montgomery.

The monument has been moved. But Alabama’s suspended chief justice is carrying on his fight. In a recent interview, the embattled judge called the federal court order to move the monument from the rotunda of the state judicial building “an unlawful order.” Thousands of supporters from around the country have traveled to Montgomery over the past two weeks to show their support — both for the public display of the Ten Commandments and for Justice Moore himself.

But not all Christian leaders are in concert with Moore’s approach to dealing with the controversy. While many — including Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family and former U.N. ambassador Alan Keyes — have voiced their strong support for Judge Moore, others say he is wrong to ignore the federal order.

One of those is Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and a presidential appointee to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Land says Moore cannot pick and choose which laws he wants to obey.

“Judge Moore says that if he had followed the rule of law, we would never have had the Declaration of Independence. Well, that’s true — [but] does he want to start a revolution against the government of the United States?” Land asks. “And if he does, do Christians want to follow him in engaging in an insurrection against the government of the United States? I don’t.”

Land says working to improve the system is a better alternative than starting another American revolution. The best solution, he says, is to get Bush’s judicial nominees confirmed. “That’s why they’re being filibustered in the Senate,” he says. “If we really want to change this, then we ought to insist that that filibuster end.”

The Baptist spokesman says there is nothing wrong with America’s judicial system that better judges would not solve. He says President Bush is trying to get people on the federal appeals court who would rule differently than the ones who are there now.

Meanwhile, the Alabama associate justice acting in the place of Chief Justice Moore says he would have handled things differently had he been in Moore’s shoes. According to an Associated Press report, Gorman Houston says he would have resigned rather than violate federal court orders to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building rotunda.

Echoing comments made by Land, Houston says it is “absolutely necessary” to obey the rule of law to maintain a civilized society.

Houston and the court’s other seven associate justices overruled Moore last week and had the monument moved to a storage area under a threat of contempt and fines from a federal judge. The 70-year-old Houston became acting chief justice when Moore was disqualified from performing his duties on ethics charges for defying the federal court order.

Houston, whose son is a Methodist minister, says he has strong religious convictions — but does not feel bound by Moore’s appeal to a higher law.