Moore's Law

The Weekly Standard ^ | February 18, 2004 | Terry Eastland

[RWR8189]

Bill Pryor, Alabama's attorney general, explains why Judge Roy Moore was wrong to defy a federal court order.

ROY MOORE, you will recall, is the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who last summer defied a federal court order to remove his hefty Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the State Judicial Building. The order eventually was carried out by the associate justices of his court. Since then, Mr. Moore, who later was removed from office by a state judicial ethics panel, has become a celebrity of sorts in some conservative circles, with talk that he even might run for president.

But before Mr. Moore's sympathizers begin ordering bumper stickers, they ought to consider a speech given earlier this month by William Pryor, the Alabama attorney general.

Mr. Pryor had a major role in Alabama's Ten Commandments drama. He thought the state had a duty to obey the injunction, and he urged the chief justice's colleagues to do that, notwithstanding his own view that there are ways of depicting the Ten Commandments in a courthouse that are constitutional. Mr. Pryor also represented the state in the ethics deliberation that resulted in Mr. Moore's removal.

While Mr. Moore and Mr. Pryor hold to the same Christian faith, they remain at odds on essential questions of duty and the rule of law. Both men can't be right. And in his speech, delivered to the Federalist Society of Harvard Law School, Mr. Pryor shows why Mr. Moore is wrong.

Mr. Moore criticized Mr. Pryor and other Alabama officials for failing to accept that they had a moral duty to acknowledge God that required them to join him in disobeying the injunction. Citing a number of New Testament texts, Mr. Pryor makes the theological argument that because God is sovereign and government exists by his will, "we have a moral obligation to obey the commands of our government" and that this duty, which is "for our protection and common good," isn't suspended "even when we believe its commands are unsound"--unless, of course, government should command a citizen to violate a Christian duty.

That didn't happen in the Ten Commandments case, says Mr. Pryor, who makes the obvious point that "Christ did not command us to maintain a monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the State Judicial Building."

To my mind, Mr. Pryor makes a convincing argument for why Mr. Moore should have seen his duty. But the Alabama attorney general also usefully addresses Mr. Moore's contention, made after the monument had been removed, that "if the rule of law means to do everything a judge tells you to do, we would still have slavery in this country."

The implication is that slavery ended as a result of defying a court's injunction. That isn't true. It took a long and bloody civil war and then the 13th Amendment to end slavery. Of course, there was a most noxious court decision that those events effectively overrode, Dred Scott vs. Sandford, which held that the Missouri Compromise unconstitutionally prohibited slavery in the territories and also that black people weren't citizens. But if you look at Abraham Lincoln's response to Dred Scott, as Mr. Pryor does, what you find is compelling instruction on how properly to respond to a court decision you think erroneous

As Mr. Pryor explains, Lincoln argued that Dred Scott was wrongly decided, but the means of opposition he endorsed didn't include defiance of a final court order. Lincoln understood that the Constitution created a judiciary to decide disputes, that the parties to a lawsuit were obligated to adhere to court orders and that if they disobeyed the orders, the rule of law would be undermined. For Lincoln, the legitimate method of opposition was political - voters supporting the right candidates, representatives enacting the right laws, and judges in proper cases reversing erroneous decisions.

Perhaps the only good thing to say about a run for office by Roy Moore is that it would constitute the right kind of response - a political response - to the legal decision he thought wrong. Yet it is how he responded as a judge to that decision that will remain his regrettable legacy. Mr. Pryor's worthy speech is a reminder of where Chief Justice Moore's duty truly lay - and of what the rule of law fairly required.

Terry Eastland is publisher of The Weekly Standard. This column originally appeared in the Dallas Morning News.

[stainlessbanner]

Lincoln might not be the best example to illustrate state sovereignty.

[07055]

It's only ok to disobey the law if you want to see gays married.

[Lancey Howard]

Mr. Pryor makes the theological argument that because God is sovereign and government exists by his will, "we have a moral obligation to obey the commands of our government" and that this duty, which is "for our protection and common good," isn't suspended "even when we believe its commands are unsound"--unless, of course, government should command a citizen to violate a Christian duty.

WOW!!! Is this guy Pryor a sickening scumbag, or what?
Clearly, government is his God.
I certainly hope that Alabama unloads this left-wing clown in the next election, if not sooner.

[stainlessbanner]

Does Pryor really think God would not want his covenant with man displayed?

[thiscouldbemoreconfusing]

I, for one, agree with Chief Justice Moore and disagree with AG Pryor.

[OldBrit]

Well, it would be consistent to either decry both Moore and the San Francisco business or to support both.

Wasn't it Thoreau that said it is our duty to disobey a law that we find repugnant and our duty to accept the punishment for disobeying the law as testimony to our objection?

I'm clearly opposed to same-sex marriage. I'm not sure that I support the ten commandments monument in the courthouse. (I think I'd prefer to have the Bill of Rights to the U. S. Constitution posted in every classroom and in every courtroom.)

But, I will say this:

In both cases, people feel strong enough about the issue to defy the law and suffer the consequences.

In both cases, the perpetrators (Moore in Alabama, and the Mayor of San Francisco) are forcing us to look at the issues and resolve them.

Perhaps, as a result of these actions, we will see legislation or constitutional amendments that better protect religious expression (Moore) or ban gay marriage entirely.

Just remember that the civil disobedience of our Right-To-Life friends has brought abortion to the fore-front, and I believe motivated people to get politically active and elect people like George W. Bush who will work to change the law and make murdering the pre-born illegal.

Liz

[OldBrit]

Isn't it interesting that President Bush nominated Pryor to the federal bench and the Democrats fillibustered him because he's "too conservative and ideological"?

I didn't think so at the time, but, maybe the Democrats made a "horrible mistake" and actually did us a favor by keeping Pryor off the federal bench.

It is ironic that the Dems kept someone that apparently agrees with them off the bench.

Liz

[NutCrackerBoy]

IMO, civil disobedience is available to those who are not government officials. I supported Moore's rock, and I detest the SCOTUS doctrine which was the clear precedent for its removal. However, I did not support Moore's decision to disobey the order to remove. And Mayor Newsom of San Francisco will lose his job over his actions if there is any justice.

I think Pryor is an excellent nominee. Just because he acted to remove Moore from the bench is no reason for the Democrats to like him!

[Lancey Howard]

I think Pryor was too clever by half.
It is possible that Pryor took this goofy "government is God" left-wing position in order to try to gain favor with (con) the scumbag Democrats. Guess it didn't work. His attitudes scare the living daylights out of me. I hope Bush simply wipes his forehead and says, "Whew, that was a close one".

[South40]

William Pryor, the Alabama attorney general.

Didn't he catch himself on fire while freebasing cocaine? :-P

[StonyBurk]

Do agree--indeed it was Lincoln who violated the US Constitution.My problem with Bill Pryor is he believes that
the Rule of Law is whatever the modern oligarchy of Despots
say it is. Yet my understanding of the Rule of Law as passed down from Rutherfords' LEXREX, WM Blackstones
Commentaries on English Law, and John Lockes "Of Civil Government" is that if we are a nation of Laws -rahter than
REXLEX (as it was in the Middle Ages) Then the written Law
(Our US Constitution if it is to be supreme) must be an
"instrument for the government of courts as well as the
legislature"as stated in Marbury v.Madison,1803 not
"whatever we say it is"as too many Federal Judges believe.

[StonyBurk]

do agree with you-- Mr.Pryor ought do a study on the Sermon
preached before the House of Representatives and the Council
in Conn. And passed around the Colonies in 1776 "On the
Right to Rebel"the Rev. Samuel West ,who went on to take part in his States' Cosntitutional Convention, made a very
compelling case that we ought act more like the Honorable
Roy S.Moore did in standing up for the Rule of Law, and
States rights as defined in the 9th and 10th Amendments in
the Bill of Rights.

[BraveMan]

1 Timothy 4

Instructions to Timothy

1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.

[freedomcrusader]

For Lincoln, the legitimate method of opposition was political - voters supporting the right candidates, representatives enacting the right laws, and judges in proper cases reversing erroneous decisions.

We've done all those things, and what was the result?

Sandra Day O'Connor deciding that discrimination based on race is Constitutional for 25 years.

Sandra Day O'Connor deciding that McCain-Feingold doesn't restrict free speech.

Sandra Day O'Connor saying that the "right to privacy" in the Constitution trumps state laws about sodomy, despite the fact that the overwhelming trend was for states to strike these laws on their own and/or not enforce them.

Sandra Day O'Connor, turning her back on millions of unborn.

I'm fed up with Republicans following the law and the RATS breaking it and getting away with it.

We're playing by Marquis of Queensberry rules, while the RATS shove a knife in our gut.

I'm sick of it. It's time to force a showdown, and Pryor was a coward for not doing so.

[Lancey Howard]

It's time to force a showdown, and Pryor was a coward for not doing so.

Excellent post.

[My Dog Likes Me]

Sanity Check Needed.

Bill Pryor is a devout Catholic (rare in 'Bama) who has a copy of the Commandments displayed in his office. The speech cited focused on extreme "activist" decisions made by BOTH conservative and liberal judges who, in their judicial activism, distort or disregard the law. In the case of the commandments, and as attorney general of the state, Pryor had to follow the decision by the federal court. No choice.

Pryor is a darn good man, and as an Alabamian, I'm proud to have him as AG.

[XHogPilot]

Moore: "if the rule of law means to do everything a judge tells you to do, we would still have slavery in this country."
Eastland: "The implication is that slavery ended as a result of defying a court's injunction. That isn't true. It took a long and bloody civil war"...

The writer, Terry Eastland, is clueless! If civil war is not a defiance of law, what is it? The Dred Scott decision rendered validity to the CSAs position and could not be overturned until the political forces supporting that decision were removed by war.

[freedomcrusader]

Pryor's oath is to protect and defend the Constitution, not a judge's unconstitutional order.

Civil disobedience can, in fact, be engaged in by elected officials, and is particularly noble when done in defense of the Constituion.

Bill Pryor, like too many other elected Republicans, has no stomach to defend the principle at stake.

In the meantime, an elected RAT, the mayor of San Fransisco, flouts the law, and an elected Republican, the governor of California, does absolutely nothing to stop it.

I'm tired of seeing Republicans act like chumps.