Tom Wimsatt

Mount Airy, Md 21771-7490

The Gazette

218 Main Street

Mount Airy, Md.  21771

Dear Gazette,

It seems your commentator, David Grand, has it wrong this time.  His column in the September 4, 2003 Gazette makes Judge Roy Moore out to be some raving religious fanatic while ignoring the real problems being exposed in this case. 

The first problem is the fact that there is no place in the U.S. Constitution “forbidding the government from endorsing any religion” nor is there anything declaring a “separation of church and state.”  The first amendment to the Federal Constitution States:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ...”

It says “Congress shall...”  Last time I looked, the judiciary was not part of congress.  Further, I don’t see any law being legislated here.  The judiciary does not make the laws, the legislative branch has that power.  The effect of the federal judge ruling as he did is that a law has been made prohibiting the display of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama court house.  Anybody see a problem with that?

The second problem here is that the Constitution is meant to limit the power of the Federal government.  Amendment X clearly states:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. “

Here we have a federal judge restricting the powers of a state supreme court judge with no constitutional authority to do so. 

Third, the people of Alabama want the kind of person that Roy Moore is in the state supreme court.  The Alabama Constitution begins with the following:

“We, the people of the State of Alabama, in order to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, ...”

Judge Moore, as Mr. Grand pointed out, campaigned as “The Ten Commandments judge” and the people of the state of Alabama elected him.  What you have here is an appointed federal judge overruling  a duly elected official of the people.  If that isn’t knocking on the door to tyranny, then tell me what is!  Do we believe in a government by THE PEOPLE and for THE PEOPLE or don’t we?

Judge Roy Moore has done what few people have been unwilling to do for the last 30+ years and that is challenge the rampant judicial activism that is so prevalent in our courts.  We have judges legislating from the bench and now we have a bunch of Senators, including our own - Mikulski and Sarbanes, blocking the appointment of federal judges who actually believe in the Constitution as it was written and intended.   Mr. Grand, there is much more at stake here than some Christian pitching a fit because he didn’t get his way. We have the whole form of our government being played with in the most insidious way using the current whipping boy, Christians, as a smoke screen.