Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was placed on suspension for refusing to remove the 5300-pound Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building in August 2003. The controversy over the monument stems from a lawsuit filed in October 2001 by three organizations on behalf of three Alabama lawyers who often had business at the judicial building and said the monument offended them. Moore had the monument moved into the building's rotunda in July 2001. "I have no intention of removing the monument of the Ten Commandments, the moral foundation of our law," Moore said. "To do so would, in effect, be a disestablishment of the justice system of this state." Moore said this because he thought that to remove the monument was in essence denying the God that created him. This country was brought about by Christian forefathers whose intention to separate church from state was not to prevent United State's citizens from expressing their Christianity, but to prevent our government from being run by the church as in Old England.
When the Constitution and the First Amendment, as in all state amendments, were written, the words were not meant to be taken literally, but to be used as a guideline to avoid the shortcomings of Old England. The church ran the country and it was promised to the people that administration of this new country would be conducted differently. It didn't mean that if you were in politics you couldn't have a belief in a higher power. But, there seems to be more and more powerful organizations that want the definition to mean just that. If that were so, then it could be taken as far as to demand that the President of the United States not have any religious affiliation. Does this mean that only an atheist could be elected for government term? Some people believe that separation means there is not a relationship between the government and the church, religion or God.
