Alabama’s chief justice offered an unusual interpretation of the U.S. Constitution in a newly-released video, telling a religious organization that the First Amendment only protects Christianity.
“They didn’t bring the Koran over on the pilgrim ship, the Mayflower” Chief Justice Roy Moore announced at the Pastor for Life Luncheon, an event hosted in January by Pro-Life Mississippi. In a video obtained and released by Raw Story last Friday, Moore told his audience that religion in the First Amendment only applied to the God in the Bible.
“Let’s get real. Let’s learn our history. Let’s stop playing games,” said Moore at the Jackson, Miss. event.
“Everybody, to include the U.S. Supreme Court, has been deceived as to one little word in the First Amendment called ‘religion.’ They can’t define it,” the state’s chief justice said. “They can’t define it the way Mason, Madison and even the United State Supreme Court defined it, ‘the duties we owe to the creator and the manner of discharging it.’ They don’t want to do that, because that acknowledges a creator god.”
“Buddha didn’t create us. Mohammed didn’t create us. It’s the god of the Holy Scriptures,” said Moore.
Moore was first elected as chief justice in 2001, but was removed from office two years later for fighting to keep a monument of the Ten Commandments displayed in his courthouse. In 2012, he was re-elected to the chief justice post. Susan Watson, executive director of Alabama’s ACLU chapter, said in a statement last week, “Chief Justice Roy Moore is sorely misguided in his belief that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution only applies to Christians. It applies to everyone, regardless of his or her religious belief or non-belief.” Moore is planning to publish a pamphlet that will define America’s religion. “Black, white, all people, all religions, all faiths: it was about God. It was God who gave us our life, our liberty, and pursuit of happiness,” he said about the manifesto, which will also include copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Clare Kim Recommended
