Alabamas Moore jumps into Georgia Ten Commandments fight

<p>Suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore said Thursday that Barrow County will be the one to lead the fight to keep the Ten Commandments in public buildings.</p><p>This issue will resonate from state to state beginning here. There will be such a loud noise of discontent that no court will be able to refuse it, said Moore, whose final appeal to have a 2 1/2-ton granite Ten Commandments monument back on display in Alabamas state judicial building was rejected this week by the Supreme Court.</p><p>Moore jumped into the north Georgia countys legal battle to keep a framed parchment copy of the Ten Commandments in the courthouse by appearing at an afternoon rally to raise money for the countys legal expenses. Barrow County is being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union, which wants the Ten Commandments removed from the courthouse.</p><p>Several hundred people, fewer than expected, attended the rally in the county courthouse parking lot. Some supporters wore T-shirts that read, Thou Shalt Keep the Ten Commandments in Barrow County. Others carried cross-shaped signs with messages supporting public displays of the Ten Commandments.</p><p>Speaking from the courthouse steps with a burgundy leather Bible on the podium, Moore again defended his belief that the U.S. Constitution doesnt ban references to God in public places. He said that godless judges were making decisions based on their opinions instead of based on law and that a judges role is not to make the law but interpret the law.</p><p>There are those who would ... deny our right to acknowledge God, who pretend to be for our rights such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, he said. This inalienable right to worship God is such a fundamental right that our forefathers didnt even pretend to give it to us. But they did do something. They passed the First Amendment ... to guarantee that the right could not be taken from us.</p><p>That guarantee has been twisted and distorted by courts across our land to deny the very object it was supposed to protect, he said.</p><p>Moore was suspended after he refused to obey a federal judges order to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the judicial building. He faces a Nov. 12 ethics trial before the states Court of the Judiciary, and could be removed from the bench.</p><p>Moore said he would like for Congress to put his Ten Commandments display in the Capitol where all the people of all the states can see that its not wrong to acknowledge God.</p><p>In just one little action, Congress could restore the balance of power and stop a runaway judiciary, he said.</p><p>Moores appearance was sponsored by Ten Commandments-Georgia Inc., founded by the Rev. Jody Hice of Bethlehem First Baptist Church in support of the Barrow County display, and the conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family, which is based in Colorado.</p><p>With her children in tow, Rebecca Farrin of nearby Loganville said the rally was a good tie-in to a Thanksgiving lesson shes teaching her children about the Pilgrims and their stand for religious freedom.</p><p>I feel we need to stand up for our religious freedom, she said.</p>