Southern Appeal on "How Roy Moore's followers misrepresent Pryor's examination of Moore before Alabama's Court of the Judiciary"

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The rather zealous supporters of former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore see enemies of God everywhere. Even in then-attorney general Pryor. Feddie at Southern Appeal has the take-down.

The creme de la creme of his points comes right out of Mr. Pryor's own mouth:

For none of them involve the highest judicial officer of a state refusing to comply with a federal injunction entered by a Federal District Court, affirmed by three judges of a U.S. Court of Appeals, and where the judge had an opportunity and did ask for stays from that District Court,stay from the Eleventh Circuit,and a stay from the Supreme Court of the United States, all of which were denied. None of those cases involved the highest judicial officer of a state in that context then coming before the Commission and saying, "I would do it again."

The stakes here are high because this case raises a fundamental question: What does it mean to have a government of laws and not of men?

I have never understood the fascination with Mr. Moore. The fact is Mr. Pryor had it exactly right. A sitting Chief Justice took the law into his own hands. The Federal Court did not instruct Mr. Moore to ban God from his conscience or Alabama society. It ordered him to remove a monument that it deemed inappropriate on account of it's identification with Judeo-Christian scripture. Whether or not he agreed with the Federal Court's decision, he is bound to obey it. As chief justice of the Alabama supreme court, he could do no less without tarnishing the dignity of the office.

Mr. Moore instead chose to present his defiance as an act of conscience. He effectively said that he is to obey God, not man. However, do the laws of God and man clash here? Jesus, when asked whether or not it was just to pay taxes, replied, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." Does Mr. Moore truly suggest that God demands a two-ton monument to his Mosaic Law remain in an Alabama Courthouse lobby? No, Mr. Moore interpreted the Federal Court's decision as an inappropriate intrusion in a State's right to order it's own affairs. He may even be right. He did not respond appropriately, however.

If he truly believed that the Federal Court, the three-panel Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States erred on this issue, he could have addressed his concerns through a lawsuit. He could have resigned his judgeship and then initiated a lawsuit calling for the monument's restoration. Instead, he attempted to try his case before the cameras. Instead of appealing to the Court of law in which he has served much of his life, he resorted to the court of public opinion. In doing so, he embarrassed himself and humiliated all of those that truly want to create a space in public life for religious values. He broke his own commitment to justly interprete the law. The loss of his Chief Justice appointment is the least he deserved. Those that are so quick to lionize him ought to consider exactly what his circus accomplished for their cause. How much more welcome is the message of Christianity, and religion in general, in the public square today?