ALABAMA CLERGY JOIN BJC BRIEF OPPOSING 10 COMMANDMENTS DISPLAY

Baptist Joint Committee
Sep. 11, 2002

More than 40 Alabama clergy and religious leaders from a variety of denominations and faith traditions have joined an amicus brief opposing a Ten Commandments monument placed in the State Judicial Building by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.

Prepared by the Baptist Joint Committee, the friend-of-the-court brief supports a challenge to the constitutionality of the 5,300-pound monument filed by two civil liberties organizations.

According to the brief, which was filed Aug. 21 in U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Ala., the Ten Commandments display threatens the values underlying the Establishment Clause by disrespecting freedom of conscience, corrupting religion and creating social conflict and religious strife.

Moore, known for his earlier refusal to remove a Ten Commandments display from his circuit courtroom in Etowah County, Ala., helped workers place the granite display in the State Judicial Building after close of business on July 31, 2001.

The monument, which is engraved with the Ten Commandments, also includes engravings of religious excerpts from the Pledge of Allegiance, the Alabama Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, as well as religious statements by some of the nation’s founders.

“By displaying the Ten Commandments in the State Judicial Building, Justice Moore has usurped the role of private individuals and faith communities in shaping their own religious practices and views,” the brief states. ȁGovernmental efforts to promote religion drain religious practices and beliefs of their spiritual significance, thereby depreciating, rather than revitalizing, religion.”

K. Hollyn Hollman, Baptist Joint Committee general counsel, said the diverse group of clergy who joined the brief demonstrates the importance this issue has for all people.

“Posting the Ten Commandments in government buildings does religion no favors and makes a mockery of the Establishment Clause’s command that government refrain from giving preference to religion,” Hollman said. “This brief asserts what many know to be true — that religion flourishes best when the separation of church and state is protected.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Alabama affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against Moore on behalf of Stephen R. Glassroth, Beverly Howard and Melinda Maddox.

The brief contends that the Ten Commandments display violates the freedom of conscience of those inside and outside the Judeo-Christian faith by endorsing a particular version of the Commandments.

The brief notes that no uniform version of the Ten Commandments exists and that various religions adhere to “a version with particular phrasing, composition, and ordering.”

It also states the Ten Commandments display would lead to the corruption of religion by leaving “religion vulnerable to the changing political whims of public officials and invit[ing] the misuse of religion for political purposes.”

Joining the BJC brief were the Anti-Defamation League, The Interfaith Alliance and The Interfaith Alliance of Alabama.

Twenty-one Alabama Baptists were among the clergy and religious leaders who joined the brief. The list of clergy and religious leaders also included Disciples of Christ, Epis-copal, Jewish, Presbyterian, Unitarian-Universalist and United Church of Christ representatives.

The clergy and religious leaders who joined the brief affirmed that “the vitality of all faith traditions is served when each is constitutionally guaranteed that the state cannot dictate, define, or affect in any way its doctrines or practices.”