`Ten Commandments Judge’ to Run for Governor of Alabama

c. 2005 Religion News Service GADSDEN, Ala. _ Sounding less like “The Ten Commandments Judge” and more like a hybrid between George Wallace and any Republican candidate for governor in a conservative Southern state, Roy Moore announced his bid for Alabama’s top job in 2006. Moore’s decision, revealed Monday (Oct. 3) before more than 250 […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

GADSDEN, Ala. _ Sounding less like “The Ten Commandments Judge” and more like a hybrid between George Wallace and any Republican candidate for governor in a conservative Southern state, Roy Moore announced his bid for Alabama’s top job in 2006.

Moore’s decision, revealed Monday (Oct. 3) before more than 250 onlookers gathered in this northeast Alabama county, ends months of speculation that the ousted Alabama Supreme Court chief justice would continue his political career by challenging Gov. Bob Riley in the Republican primary.


“The time has come to stand up and return the government of Alabama to the people,” said Moore, 58, making a long list of promises _ ranging from low taxes and reformed government to a more moral society _ to the enthusiastic crowd inside the Mary G. Hardin Center for Cultural Arts in downtown Gadsden.

One thing Moore did not promise is to bring his famed Ten Commandments monument to the Alabama Capitol if elected.

Moore said he has no plans to remove the 5,280-pound piece of granite from its place in a Gadsden church.

“But I’ll tell you what I will do,” he said. “I will defend the right of every citizen of this state _ including judges, coaches, teachers, city, county and state officials _ to acknowledge God as the sovereign source of law, liberty and government.”

Riley is expected to announce his bid for a second term Saturday at his 61st birthday party in Birmingham. On the Democratic ticket, former Gov. Don Siegelman and Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley have announced their intentions to run.

Party primaries are June 6. The general election follows in November.

Moore’s kickoff _ an affair complete with banners, flag waving, Christian music, prayer and biographical video _ took place blocks from the Etowah County Courthouse where Moore first became famous.

It was there that Moore, then a Circuit Court judge, adorned his courtroom wall with a wooden Ten Commandments plaque that he made years before. He became known nationwide when the American Civil Liberties Union successfully sued to have the plaque removed.


The notoriety propelled Moore to the chief justice post in 2000, when he easily defeated Democratic nominee Sharon Yates. Once the state’s top judicial authority, Moore commissioned his copyrighted Ten Commandments monument and placed it in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building.

Again Moore was sued. Again he lost, but refused to comply with a federal judge’s order to remove the monument. That refusal resulted in his removal from office by a state citizen-judicial panel in November 2003. Appeals of his Ten Commandments case and his removal from office failed at every level of the federal judiciary.

In his absence, the associate justices of the state Supreme Court voted to remove the monument, which now is placed in Moore’s home church in Gadsden.

Despite the overtones of civil religion in Moore’s announcement event _ a singer belted lyrics such as “there’s hope in Jesus” to the judge’s red-and-white draped supporters _ the former chief justice did not focus his remarks on the Ten Commandments.

Rather, he said explicitly that he had been bothered by reading editorial commentary and listening to speculation in recent months about his inability to be anything other than a “one-issue candidate.”

So he spent the major portion of his half-hour statement Monday outlining a five-point platform under his campaign theme _ “Return Alabama” _ which featured a number of bellwether conservative issues such as term limits, lower taxes, educational choice and talk about values and morality.


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“I promise to oppose gambling, pornography, immorality and same-sex marriage,” he said to sustained applause. He also did not say explicitly that he would not attempt to find another way to display the Commandments on Capitol property.

At the conclusion of his remarks, he signed a giant display of the platform with broad pen strokes, and he called upon other candidates to support his ideas.

Riley spokesman Jeff Emerson released a statement Monday afternoon suggesting that Moore’s platform is a Riley knock-off.

“Most of the issues Roy Moore outlined today were detailed in Governor Riley’s `Plan for Change’ back in 2002, and Governor Riley has worked ever since then to implement them,” Emerson said.

Moore’s choice of campaign themes harkened remembrances of four-time Alabama Gov. George Wallace’s promise to “Stand Up for Alabama.” And his signature and challenge to other candidates was reminiscent of the Contract with America that Republicans used in 1994 to wrest control of Congress from the Democratic Party.

William Stewart, a political science professor at the University of Alabama, said much of Moore’s rhetorical flourish and political tactics are owed to Wallace. Moore, Stewart said, uses “the acknowledgment of God” much as Wallace used race.


“He stirs passions among people the way he speaks, unlike the other three candidates,” Stewart said. “(His listeners) want to stand and cheer.”

MO/JL END RNS

(Bill Barrow writes about religion for The Mobile Register in Mobile, Ala.)

Editors: To obtain a file photo of Roy Moore and his Ten Commandments monument, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by slug, designating “exact phrase” for best results.

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