August 16, 2003

[Now we're] going to give you marching orders, a charge, on behalf of our great Almighty God. I'm holding a copy of a statement that was given within 30 minutes after the chief announced his intentions. I was there in the rotunda, as were some of you, and in less than 30 minutes, Associate Justice Houston released his statement, and he quoted from United States vs. Lee. He said, "No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law in defiance with impunity. All the offices of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are the creatures of the law and are bound to obey it." And he proceeded to say that he and the other justices would now meet to determine what would happen to this chief justice.

I am urging every one of you Alabama citizens to write, to call, and to serve rebuke to this judge, who's acting in an unlawful manner, and demanding that the chief justices obey God. Isn't it curious today, that as he calls for the judicial inquiry to rule upon this chief justice, that the very ones that are demanding that we not acknowledge God are being celebrated, and one chief justice who finally said, enough is enough, is being threatened for removal?

Now, I say to you, we are meeting a generation that is calling evil good and good evil. Thomas Jefferson said it is a very dangerous doctrine to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions. It is one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. The Constitution has erected no such tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despot.

To Alabama Governor Riley, I read you a quote from Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson responded to a court decision that he deemed to be unconstitutional, and here is what he said, "The court has made its decision. Now let's see the court enforce it." I call upon the executive branch of this state to do that which is righteous in honor of God. I call those who claim to know God and love God to live the truth and not just give lip service to the truth. [cheers, applause]

I urge you, if you did not get a card, then you write, in essence, your own on the back of the program. You get this to us. We're going to turn them in by the thousands. And I want to say this, as you give us your address, I will send you a copy of the poem that the chief justice just quoted to us that we all need to memorize. I'll see that this is mailed to you, if we have your name and address, and we will forward this information, as well, to the Legal Defense Fund, Moral Foundations for Law. This chief should not have to be looking over his shoulder to see if he can pay those who represent him.

The ACLU and Southern Poverty Law are being paid by the federal government. Not one dime, not one dime of this chief's defense has been paid for by the citizens of Alabama, but rather through the free-will offerings of people like you and me. And now it is time for us to step up to the plate. One of the ways you can step up is by helping us today as the buckets again come through. I'm telling you, folks, every person in this room has a vested interest in assisting in this battle.

Isn't it amazing that what has made so many Christians in this state quake, and the entire bench quake--other than the chief--is the threat that it may cost Alabama dollars? How much is your liberty worth? What price is your price? Someone railed at me and said, "Well, do you think the citizens of Alabama should pay out of their tax dollars for this chief justice's law-breaking?" And my answer to that is, "Do you think I should pay my tax dollars to support Planned Parenthood and the death of the innocent?" [cheers, applause]

It is time for you to stand up and to speak up. In one generation, we've gone from a generation where God was honored and our streets were safe; where the flag was so revered it was raised in the morning and saluted, and removed every evening, and protected lest the dew fall upon that sacred symbol of our freedom; where divorce was rare and lifelong marriage was not; where men stood when a lady entered the room and opened doors for them when they exited, out of respect; where children seldom even considered showing disrespect for their elders; where unwed motherhood was considered shameful out of reverence for God's standards and concern for the offspring; where men understood the importance of fatherhood and took seriously their responsibility to care for their children; where children were safe at home and school; where prayer and Bible study at home and school was considered a good thing; where abortion was illegal, immoral and rare; where experimenting on human beings was the action of Nazi barbarians and justification for war.

Never in my lifetime could I have imagined that I would live to see the day when we would be debating the cloning of human beings for body parts. But here we are. Sitcoms once reflected the prevailing moral code based upon the Judeo-Christian ethic. Actors playing the role of a married couple wore pajamas when they retired to twin beds, separated by a nightstand--lest the viewing public think they might be living in an adulterous, or simulating an adulterous, affair. Homosexuality was a crime and homosexuals restricted their activities to the shadows. Decent people went to church, and virtually every family had a family Bible and a family altar, and they practiced it.

But that generation is dying, and a new generation is taking its place--comprised in large measure by people who have never been to church nor read a Bible; in large measure have never known their father, with out-of-wedlock births now reaching 50 percent nationwide and exceeding 70 percent in black America; who have been taught there is no God, the Bible is a myth, and the church is a crutch; who have witnessed the loss of one-third of their classmates as their mothers have expressed freedom as their right to choose an abortion; who have entered a public school system that, in many ways and places, is more like a war zone than a place of higher learning, where their own classmates are being murdered. They find themselves in schools that are facilitators of fornication, rather than institutions of higher learning--where the theory of evolution is taught as fact, and the fact of God is taught as theory; whose concept of entertainment has been shaped by a movie industry that peddles gratuitous sex and endless violence, and a music industry that feeds non-stop nihilistic pleasure, complete with pornographic images, so they can live out their thought-life before the screen.

How do we stop this slide? How do we see this immorality turned around? A militant and largely godless minority in this country made a commitment, following World War II, to use their collective influence to divorce this country from its constitutional foundation and its Judeo-Christian heritage--offering in its place the map of separation, and declaring that the state was omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient.

They promised a utopian, secular society free of the bondage of external religious trappings. They continued the legacy of Thomas Paine in the French Revolution. Since they lacked the numbers to do their work at the ballot box and through representative government, they focused on an active judiciary while "Johnny came marching home again, hurrah, hurrah," to rebuild his life in his beloved America, focusing on family, career, and community. These self-appointed saviors of American society focused on our institutions of higher learning, the media, but especially the courts.

Prayer was ruled unconstitutional in 1962, Bible reading in 1963, abortion on demand in 1973, the Ten Commandments in 1980. Now the Pledge is under attack, if we recite "One nation under God." Now we find that the 11th Circuit Court, in agreement with Myron Thompson of the Middle District Court of Alabama, has declared you cannot acknowledge God in the public place. And I say to you, "Enough is enough." [cheers, applause]

Isn't it interesting that the judge who is sitting in judgment over the chief justice compared him in the court proceedings to thinking he was like Lester Maddox, or George Wallace, or others of the southern judges? They declared, you're not going to stand on states' rights, just like we proved before, we will prove again. But what they failed to realize was when the Supreme Court stepped over states' rights to give black Americans their just civil rights, what gave them the moral authority was the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The justice system rightly cited divine right, moral law, that stepped over states' rights, and they were right. [cheers, applause]

Forty years later, the Eleventh Circuit, federal bureau's court, justices appointed for life, accountable in their minds to no one, have now said you don't have a higher moral law to turn to. Had their position been the position of the courts 40 years ago, there would have been no civil rights movement--only tyranny.

I submit to you, it is God who has given us this wonderful nation. It is God that gives the government legitimacy, and it is we the people who declare that we give them the right to govern us. And it is time for you and I to do everything in a lawful manner at our disposal to stand up, speak up, and refuse to give up. For, if the church of Jesus Christ sleeps through this one, it is over for this country. I believe that this battle, if not the decisive battle of a 40-year culture war, is certainly a decisive battle. Our children, should Jesus tarry, will judge us by what we do on this issue.

I call on the United States of America and the church of the living God in this nation, I call on every pastor of every church who claims to believe the Bible, to get out of your lethargy and to stand up and speak up. [cheers, applause] This nation is like she is because the church has largely fallen asleep. The church has largely fallen asleep because the pastors have concentrated for too long on how to build their own flock instead of how to be the salt and the light.

And I am calling pastors across this land to join us in a movement of pastors again declaring the truth. It is time, pastors, for you to stand up, to speak up, and refuse to give up. It would be a tragedy if this chief justice, a modern day Daniel, is destroyed by the juggernaut of evil that is now [spewing] its venom on him. We must surround him, not only with our prayers, but with our persons. I declare that in the name of our Lord. [cheers, applause]