Devvy Kidd -- The Battle In Alabama, Part I

There doesn't seem to be much interest by the government's media apparatus to cover the battle raging down in Alabama over the stand taken by sitting Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore regarding the Ten Commandments.

This fight by Justice Moore is not new and probably cost former Alabama Governor Fob James his job. Governor James' fate was more or less sealed by a series of actions he undertook in the name of truth: First was his famous letter to the Honorable Ira DeMent, United States District Judge dated June 23, 1997; see: www.alabamastuff.com/dement.htm.

During this bitter battle, Judge Charles Price was called upon as a state judge to rule whether Judge Moore's actions were unconstitutional. Judge Price ruled in November 1996 that although prayer in the courtroom is unconstitutional, Judge Moore's display of the Ten Commandments could remain.

(Funny thing how a prayer opens each session of Congress where laws are made, yet the court rooms that carry out those laws passed by Congress, must be completely Godless. Well, we certainly wouldn't want to offend anyone, now would we?)

In February 1997, Judge Price reversed his earlier ruling and found that the hand-carved plaques containing the Ten Commandments violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of Alabama. He ruled that fellow Circuit Court Judge Roy Moore must remove or modify his courtroom display of the Ten Commandments lest Moore be guilty of violating the First Amendment.

Judge Price's change of mind was so unpopular, that Governor Fob James threatened to call out the National Guard and state troopers to keep his order from being carried out. Such a stand is seldom seen in America anymore - especially by elected public servants.

For his politically correct ruling, Judge Charles Price was awarded the 1997 Profile in Courage Award by the leftist John F. Kennedy Library Foundation for "his devotion to the principles of the American Constitution and judicial integrity..."

For Fob James' courageous stand, the man who backed Roy Moore (who was so popular with the people for his stand on the Ten Commandants they elected him as Chief Justice of their Supreme Court), was allegedly ousted from office in 1998 by the same voters. I submit to you that vote fraud is the number one tool in getting rid of elected public servants who "step out of line" with the globalist agenda.

Back in 1995, Justice Moore was a state circuit judge who suddenly found himself in the crosshairs of the ACLU about a homemade plaque of the Ten Commandments displayed in his court room.

The people of Alabama were so upset by this flagrant violation of the ever popular ‘separation of Church and State,' that in November 2000, they elected Roy Moore Chief Justice of their State Supreme Court! Roy Moore is a man of profound belief and rare courage. His word is his bond and in keeping with his campaign promise, he installed a granite monument of the Ten Commandments in the court rotunda.

Naturally this angered the ACLU and other anti-American organizations. Their philosophy is in complete harmony with the Constitution of the United Soviet Socialist Republic (1922-1991), which stated, "Article 124: In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the State and the school from the church." The same position was adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1947 in their famous 'separation of Church and State' ruling.

Fast forward to 2002: On November 18, 2002, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled that this granite monument had to be removed within 30 days. Roy Moore refused to comply with this ruling and filed an appeal in federal court on December 10, 2002. Things are going to heat up down in Alabama before this is all over and we will see who prevails. This was and is a jurisdictional issue of epic proportions - one that should have been challenged back in 1947.

As efforts to crush all national sovereignty, promote unity amongst Americans of all religions, denigrate patriotism and push a Godless society upon our land have gone into hyper-drive, the constant repetition of phrases are used to condition and herd the masses into the desired direction with the end result being a nation committing suicide, both morally and culturally.

The ‘separation of church and state' is one of those chants parroted twenty times a day by special interest groups, i.e., Americans United for Separation of church and State, who make their living twisting historical documents and court rulings to suit their own agenda. Isn't it interesting that AUS just happened to crank up for business in 1947 - the same year as the Supreme Court made their famous ruling? There is big money to be made in this country over the separation of church and state issue.

But, how many people in our great land, who line up behind these anti-American organizations and chant the separation of church and state so rabidly, even have a clue about the 1947 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that brought this war into being? Maybe one in 500,000?

A case known as Everson v. Board of Education decision [330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947)] started this ‘separation of church and state' movement. A New Jersey State law authorized local school districts to make arrangements and rules for transporting children to public and private nonprofit schools. One school district, Ewing Township, directed students to use the public bus system to get to and from school, and then reimbursed their parents for the costs. The township made payments to parents of both public school students and students of private, Catholic schools - payments that were permitted under State law.

A Mr. Everson, taxpayer and misguided dupe, brought forth his silly assertion that busing children to both public and private schools would bring about the establishment of a state religion. Everson brought suit against the Board of Education. In State court, he argued that money collected as taxes for public education was being used instead to help support students of private schools—private schools that provided religious education on behalf of a particular church.

Everson claimed that the payments to parents of parochial school students violated the constitutional guarantee against the "establishment" of a religion contained in the First Amendment. The school board, Everson believed, had violated the constitutionally guaranteed "separation of church and state." The issue was finally addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tragically for this Republic, the Supreme Court hallucinated the following in their ruling and announced that: "..the First Amendment has enacted a 'wall' between church and state that must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach thereof. We could not approve the slightest breach. New Jersey has not breached it here." Huh?

Justice Black delivered the opinion of the court which had some rather convoluted language justifying their position:

"The New Jersey statute is challenged as a "law respecting an establishment of religion." The First Amendment, as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth, commands that a state "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ."

The Fourteenth Amendment states in part: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;"

The Fourteenth Amendment created a second class of "citizen", an important distinction few people understand. The 1947 Supreme Court took the position that the freedom to worship is a privilege, not a God-given right. On December 10, 1995, a document authored by Judge Lander H. Perez of Louisiana was submitted to the U.S. Congress. This document purported that the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution "is and should be held to be ineffective, invalid, null, void, and unconstitutional" for a long list of valid reasons. But, that's an article for another time.

The Everson decision unconstitutionally and dramatically expanded the role of the federal courts without any authority and completely ignored the very precise wording in the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

Congress wasn't attempting to ‘make any law respecting an establishment of religion' as cited in the First Amendment in the Everson case. Please note there is no language about the states of the Union establishing a religion - only Congress. But, the 1947 Supreme Court used the Fourteenth Amendment to slip through the precise wording of the First Amendment.

This past October, U.S. District Judge Harry Lee Hudspeth ruled that a 42-year old display of the Ten Commandments located on the grounds of the State Capitol in Austin, Texas was not an official endorsement of any religion and could remain in place.

This was a very important ruling because this federal judge concluded that no one could argue that the State of Texas was trying to establish or endorse any particular religion. Note Judge Hudspeth did not say this was a violation of church and state under the First Amendment because Congress was trying to establish a religion.

Last May, worldnetdaily.com carried a story with a different outcome on yet another federal judge's interpretation of the First Amendment:

Federal District Judge Jennifer Coffman ordered all displays of America's historical documents in Eastern Kentucky, including the Mayflower Compact and the preamble to the state's constitution! According to Judge Coffman, allegedly these historical documents [displays] "have the effect of conveying a very specific governmental endorsement of religion."

While Coffman's decision is laughable, the fact that she's a sitting U.S. Judge is not so funny. The First Amendment, dare I repeat myself, says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...." In this typical case of brain melt by another federal judge, somehow Coffman determined that Congress had gone into the State of Kentucky and attempted to establish some sort of religion.

Devvy Kidd is the founder and Director of POWER (Project on Winning Economic Reform). Has been a guest on more than 1500 radio shows, given hundreds of speeches and has run for Congress twice. Sales of her little booklets, "Why A Bankrupt America" and "Blind Loyalty" sold close to 2,000,000 copies. Devvy's web site is: www.devvy.com

wallace@devvy.com