Judge Moore fired

Because people are so headstrong with their individual and collective agendas there will always be overlapping of religion and government. The best we can do is keep it minimal.

alright. i'll keep it minimal for my part. was great talking to you. time for bed.

God Bless America does not mean that God has blessed America.

It means more that America desperately needs to deserve a blessing.

And I really don't care if it's Jehovah, Allah, or an omnipotent alien who does the blessing.

I can accept historical crossings of the church/state line. yeah, this part of the country was colonized by Christians. But it's kind of cool to go from town to town and check out who is occupying the First Parish. In my local neighborhood the UU's outnumber the Congregationalists (in First Parish) maybe 6 to 2 out of 10. The other 2 being non-denominational or in one nearby case the town meeting house.

But I digress.

Judge Moore did not put the tablet in the rotunda for legal/judicial reasons. His reasons are stated to be religious convictions, but damn if it don't look political to me. He'll run for office...

He knew what was coming. After all he worships a man who was executed for preaching without a license.

You believe in punishing children for the crimes of their parents? because that's what it's saying.

I am pissed. I read this morning that even though he had been suspended since August, he still collected his pay!

That is common practice, and it's also common practice to be suspended without pay, it's a judgement call by the employer, or could be in their policy.

I did not know that, but am not really surprised. The old pork barrel is seemingly endless to these people.

A bit vindictive aren't we?

It seems to me everying in this story happened exactly as it should. Until yesterday, Judge more had not been fired it would have been wrong to suspend him without pay.

The went through an effective legal process to suspend and then to dismiss him. I am very happy with the outcome. There is no reason to be pissed.

Due process is a good idea for everyone.

ebrown_p- You ARE right. He WAS entitled to his pay until there was a disposition of the case. I was just pissed because I thought that what he did was an egregious act, and I would have wanted some REVENGE.

After running through this thread, I find this post to stand out - and that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it was the first thought I had upon learning the judge's fate !

Welcome to the play ground Suzette.

I understand his beliefs and convictions regarding the 10 commandments but I also don't believe that religion belongs in the government.

There is a specific reason for seperating Church and State and that is to keep religion from governing the people.

You'll get the armchair Constitutional authorities on these boards bemoaning that the forefathers were specific about religion being involved in the state because they used God in the Constitution. I think if they knew how befuddled minds try to twist their words these days, they'd not be too happy and would have happily stricken that reference out of the original. They were only human, after all, even if a few of them could be considered geniuses. If you read about each of the individuals, they were not saints. Washington married into money and didn't have wooden false teeth. Trying to impose the Bible and the words of the Ten Commandments onto written law which is primarilly Roman law is a folly. If he even believed that the monument would be a deterrent, he should be examined for mental aberrations.

They'd be even less happy about the Federal Constitution being appllied to the states.

I can't quite interpret your statement as all the state constitutions are mirrors of the federal. State's rights rather went amuk when the South tried to secede from the Union over state's rights and basically over the insistance that they be able to retain slavery which after all made this a very rich country. Lincoln, of course, didn't have an abolutionist stance on the matter -- he did necessarily become a tyrant, striking down the writ of habeus corpus and putting some pretty drastic restraints on the press.

It's when states pass laws that are clearly unconstitutional and no matter whether one likes it or not, it's still the USSC which was given a blank check for the authors of the Consitution to interpret their words. It's rather like a conductor interpreting Beethoven, though. You either like the interpretation or you do not. The just aren't any perfections or absolutes in any government document. The limitations of semantics is a unavoidable mantle, thus all the political spin by those who are given the responsibility of spinning. I think Judge Moor (sic) is a spinner and will likely run for governor and get elected. Hurray for the confederates.

The firing has in effect made judge Moore the darling of the religious right and the latest Christian Martyr. He could probably get elected, if he ran, governor of one of the bible belt states.

There really isn't much to interpret. The Federal level Constitution was written to be exactly that. It was written to control the Federal Government. At the time the only authority it had over the states were the few clauses that mention the states specifially.

As it applies to this discussion - The Federal Constitution limits church/state interference. At the time it was passed however it didn't prevent the states from designating a state religion. It only limited the Federal government from doing so.



Personally, I doubt he could win any seat higher than dog catcher but... I don't live down there and don't have to live with their folly either.

Let me first say that I agree completely with au1929 and you, therefore, must be someone to contend with on this forum! :wink:

However, I also must thank littlek for my first welcome (huh? That reads kinda funny!). This joint looks like fun.

I don't see anyone foolish enough to believe they can establish a state religion and I think one would find that if it was attempted, it would be striken down as against the Federal Constitution. There are loopholes in the Constitution and in the Bill of Rights. The authors expected it to be fine tuned and, in fact, to be drastically different by our time --perhaps even replaced. Oh, the albatross of Faithful Tradition.

Why shouldn't he be elected governor?

If the majority of people in his state agree with him, he darn well *should* be governor. That's representative government.