Alan Keyes and Judge Roy Moore
August 25, 2003

James Dobson and Don Hodel interview

DOBSON: Well, hello, everyone. This is Jim Dobson, and the program you're listening to is Focus on the Family. John Fuller is on vacation today, and I'm here in the studio today with my colleague and friend Don Hodel, who is the president of Focus on the Family.

We're recording these comments late Sunday afternoon, which our listeners will hear, of course, on Monday. And this is, I believe, the only program I've ever prepared on the Sabbath. I don't remember another one. The reason we're doing it today is because even though we honor this day, Sunday, the Sabbath, as a day of rest and worship, in this case, the news story that we're going to be covering is changing so rapidly that we would have been giving old information or misinformation, if we hadn't come into the studio this afternoon for an update.

We're here to talk about Justice Roy Moore's efforts to keep the 5,000-pound monument depicting the Ten Commandments and other inscriptions related to our faith in the Alabama State Judicial Building where Judge Moore serves as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. He has been ordered by a federal judge, Myron Thompson, to remove the monument. And, of course, Justice Moore has refused to comply with that order because of the implications of that demand. And the standoff continues to this moment--and there is so much at stake.

Don, you and I discussed this situation yesterday--I guess, Friday--and we decided that we absolutely had to let people know what hangs in the balance here. Why is this issue so important?

HODEL: Well, that's right. It, as you said, is not being reported accurately in the media, and I think many Christian people who have stood with Chief Justice Moore on this issue concerning the Ten Commandments for years are now confused about its meaning.

DOBSON: Some of our conservative friends, those with whom we're usually in agreement on things, such as Jay Sekulow and Richard Land--both of whom are great friends of mine--are calling Judge Moore's unwillingness to obey a federal judicial order as an outrage and the wrong thing to do. One of them said that he was dismayed by it, and we disagree strongly, and we want to explain why on our program today.

HODEL: Well, what's at stake here is not just a monument in a building in Alabama. What's occurring here is a continuing effort to remove any reference to God or our faith from the public square--and if it succeeds here, there's no place to stop this rampant secularization of the state.

DOBSON: With that little bit of background, let's join Justice Roy Moore and former Ambassador to the United Nations Alan Keyes by phone, both of whom are on the scene in Alabama. I guess, Alan, you're in Mobile--is that right?

KEYES: Yes.

DOBSON: And Justice Moore, you're in Montgomery.

MOORE: Well, I'm at my home right now.

DOBSON: Let's start with you, Judge Moore. Bring us up to date. I understand that on Friday, you were suspended as the chief justice for a period of twelve days. Is that correct?

MOORE: Well, there's no time limit. The word "suspension" is rather just a word that doesn't really reflect what it is. I'm disqualified from acting as a judge during the time period that a complaint filed with the Judicial Inquiry Commission was [UNTELLIGIBLE] in the judiciary. But, basically, they're trying to go overboard on this, and we're very concerned about that. They want to get me out of the picture, I think.

DOBSON: You are an elected official, elected by the people of Alabama. How can a federal judge give you orders about the Alabama judicial building? I mean, what authority does the federal government have over a state building in that way?

MOORE: He has absolutely no authority, power, or jurisdiction in this area. And it's that simple. He is coming down as an interior decorator of our courts.

You know, the reason--you mentioned earlier about this division among Christian friends. And I want to tell you, Dr. Dobson, the reason this division exists is because of a complete lack of understanding and a complete deviation from the truth about what this issue is about. This is about the acknowledgment of God. And under the First Amendment, and under the Tenth Amendment, the federal court has no jurisdiction telling the state that we can't acknowledge God. Our Constitution says that the justice system is established invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God--so it's not just violation of an order that they're accusing me of. He's telling me to disregard my oath and my conscience--what I'm compelled to do under that Alabama Constitution and the justice system. I'm the chief administrative officer of the justice system, and I must acknowledge God.

DOBSON: It's a usurpation, is it not, of the authority of the state. I mean, this is really a states' rights issue, in addition to being a First Amendment issue.

MOORE: In addition to being a First Amendment issue, it is clearly a states' rights issue. If the state of Alabama can't acknowledge God, then the state of California can't acknowledge God, and the state of Colorado can't acknowledge God--and it will go to the United States of America, and we will be taking God off everything we have.

DOBSON: But the astonishing thing here is that it's a usurpation of the federal constitutional interpretation by the courts which creates the issue. If the court hadn't distorted the meaning of the Constitution with regard to religion, and this arbitrary false doctrine of separation of church and state, there wouldn't be an issue here.

MOORE: Absolutely. And we know this, and we know, as Dr. Keyes is very eloquent in explaining, they have no jurisdiction at all in this area. But what concerns me here is that they put out so much deception and misinformation. They'll talk about the rule of law, I know you've heard that "the rule of law requires . . ." Well, what a judge says doesn't make law. That's the first point. If it did, we would still have slavery. What a judge says in interpreting the law--the law is the Constitution. What they're doing is, they're not even looking at statutory construction any more, they don't look at the meaning of the words, and they say, "This is what it appears to me to mean." And the United States Supreme Court is guilty of this same thing.

I'll tell you what it is, to clear it up for Christians. It's like this, if you take the Bible, and you go in there and you're a preacher, and you say, "I don't know what this word means, sin. And I don't know what the word homosexuality or sodomy means, but I'm going to tell you what I think it means." That's what we're having in the federal courts.

DOBSON: Alan, you and I and Don had a very, very important telephone conversation on Friday that just really stuck in my throat. You gave the clearest explanation I've heard about what's really at stake here. Share those perspectives with us.

KEYES: Well, I think what Justice Moore has been saying is absolutely correct, especially on the point that this federal judge has no authority. They say somebody's breaking the law, but there can be no law at the federal level dealing with the issue of establishment in the states, because the Constitution explicitly forbids it. The First Amendment says, in the very first phrase of the First Amendment, the first phrase of the whole Bill of Rights, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

Now, some people say, "Well, that means that you can't establish religion." It means more than that. It means that Congress can't even address the issue, can't touch it, can't legislate on it in any way, one way or the other. And then in the Tenth Amendment, the Constitution's also very clear: any power that is not explicitly given to the U.S. government, to the United States, or explicitly prohibited to the states, is reserved--they use that word, reserved--to the states respectively, or to the people.

When you put the First and Tenth Amendments together, it means that the power to address issues of how religion's going to be expressed at the level of the state government is reserved to the states, and the people of the states. That's absolutely clear, clean as day, in the clearest way, in the language of the Constitution.

Now, some people over the years have tried to use the Fourteenth Amendment as a way of saying, "Well, the whole Bill of Rights applies to the states, and, therefore, establishment or religion is forbidden at the state level and the federal judges can address this issue." But that's a lie. What happened in the First Amendment is not that it forbids establishment. It forbids the federal government even to deal with the issue of establishment, and with the Tenth Amendment, it reserves that power to the states.

So if you take the Fourteenth Amendment and say, "Now we have applied the Bill of Rights to the states," what it means that state officials have an obligation not to surrender the right of the people at the state level to decide this issue.

And what happened in this case? The judge orders Judge Moore to surrender the right of the people to make those decisions--because when they elected him, they wanted the Ten Commandments in the state judicial building. He said that that's what he stood for.

Now, the people have made the decision, and the federal judge comes in and says, "Remove it"--he is actually taking away the right of the people to make those decisions, while the federal Constitution by the Fourteenth Amendment makes it obligatory, obligatory, for Judge Moore and every other official of the Alabama state government to say "no" to that judge, to refuse that order.

HODEL: Alan, this is Don. Isn't this a lot like the moral battle that was waged to get rid of slavery and segregation? You know, they were both established by law at the time they were opposed. Abolition was fought over existing law. And in this case, we've got a court that has created law saying you can't have these religious symbols, and in those two battles, segregation and slavery, it was necessary for the people to speak up and to take charge, because the issue you've raised is, if there's a usurpation or a distortion of the Constitution, how do we correct it?

KEYES: That is absolutely correct, Don, but this isn't a distortion. It's not a misinterpretation. It's simply a violation.

When you go back and look at Cantwell vs. Connecticut, where this was first done, it is simply, merely, asserted, without any argument as to how or why the language of the Constitution bears the assertion. They don't even try. So, it was merely an unlawful assertion on which they then built this whole forty-year, fifty-year record of usurpation by the federal court. And finally, we have a state official with the courage and wisdom and understanding of his obligation to his state constitution.

HODEL: But Alan, the problem we've got--and you know this better than most--is that that usurpation, which began forty or so years ago, has been so imbedded in the thinking today that we've got a bunch of good, solid, right-thinking, Christian-based attorneys who themselves are saying, "Well, gee, this is the law of the land." And I think that's why I see this as very much the same kind of battle. How do we, the people, turn the government away from a wrong course?

MOORE: I agree 100% with Alan. They have no right or jurisdiction here. But what they've done is they've taken a place where they have no jurisdiction, and they've taken the statute, and they've said, "This is the way we're going to interpret it"--and they can't even do that, because they say, "Well, we don't know what religion is." So, therefore, how can they even pretend to interpret a statute that they can't define? That's what I was trying to give in the example about the Bible. It's like somebody saying, "Well, this the way I feel it should be, and what I think it means."

You pointed out Dred Scott, or we've mentioned about slavery earlier, and back then, if I can recall, and I don't have it before me, but there was a Justice Curtis who dissented in that case, and he said something that's very relevant today. He said, "When a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individuals, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what they think it ought to mean."

And that's what we're doing. We're not following the rule of law here. There's no law at all. They are just going out and saying, "You can't acknowledge God."

Now, it's very important to remember, and if I could make one point. This whole thing is, the issue is, what the judge said it was in closing arguments: "Can the state acknowledge God?" And many well-thinking Christians think that they've got to follow the federal government who says "no," when the Constitution and every bit of our history says otherwise.

DOBSON: Alan, our great concern here, and I know it's your concern, is that this is really part of a larger plan to eliminate every vestige of faith, or religion, or reverence for God from the public square. And that's where this is headed. If we don't stop it here, they're going to have to sandblast half the buildings in Washington.

KEYES: They'll have to sandblast the Liberty Bell, because it has a Bible verse written around the rim.

MOORE: And I'll tell you, the issue, Dr. Dobson, is more than just acknowledging God as the source of our morality. The right and wrong of our morals and what we're teaching our children--and that's where we're really losing out, because when you divorce yourself from an obligation to God, a dutiful relationship, you forget your dutiful relationship to men, you lose your rights and liberties, and your morality is gone.

KEYES: And I don't think it's an accident that this is happening on the eve of this battle over homosexual marriage. Because they want to establish in the public square the notion that any reference to God, any reference to morality grounded in faith, is inappropriate and irrelevant to political discussion. And they know full well that, historically, that assumption of the nature of our culture and of our moral and religious roots, has in fact been the bulwark of our legislation on marriage, of our legislation against adultery, of our legislation with respect to sodomy, and so forth. Once they get rid of that moral foundation, they will be able to say, "Well, it's inappropriate to apply these moral standards in the political arena. That's not allowed here because of separation."

DOBSON: You know, the United States Supreme Court building, East façade, has a sculpture depicting Moses with the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments appear on the oak courtroom doors, which separate the U.S. Supreme Court from the central hallway, and there's a white marble sculpture depicting the Ten Commandments just above the justices' bench. How in the world can that be true on a federal level, and it is unconstitutional for you, Justice Moore, to have a depiction of those Ten Commandments in the state judicial building?

MOORE: Dr. Dobson, the great hypocrisy of our time is that the federal government has not said that you can't acknowledge God, they've said you can acknowledge God, as long as it doesn't mean anything, as long as through rote repetition (and I use the words right out of the 11th Circuit's case), it's lost, through rote repetition, any religious significance.

And that is taking the Third Commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain," and Christians who go before courts and pretend to try to win, and first deny the sovereignty of God, have lost the battle already. And they're playing in a game that they cannot win.

KEYES: I think that what Justice Moore's saying also illustrates where we're headed here, because it's more than just forbidding people to express their reverence and honor to God. They are actually taking us down a road where the only way we will be allowed to mention God is a blasphemous and sinful way. So that at the end of the day, this doesn't just represent doing away with good, it represents submitting to an evil. And we really need to keep this in mind because I think some goodhearted Christian people don't seem to understand where we're headed, and I think that submission to wickedness is strictly forbidden to our Christian consciences.

MOORE: And, Dr. Dobson, the reason they've been deceived is because of a simple phrase, "separation of church and state," which has been taken to mean "separating God from government." That's completely false. It was God who ordained government and the church, and kept that jurisdiction separate--because one belongs in relationship to Him, and the other is, under His laws men are regulated. And that is a separation, but it exists because of God, not to exclude God. Those who use "separation of church and state" historically understood that it was because God had ordained the church and the state.

DOBSON: I have in front of me a report of a comment that Richard Land made--and I don't want to be disparaging to him. Again, he's my great friend, and I agree with him on almost everything. I just think he's making a mistake here. He's quoted in BP News [of Southern Baptist Convention]: "'However much sympathy I may have for Judge Moore's beliefs and convictions about the Ten Commandments and the role they've played in Western civilization and American jurisprudence, I am dismayed at the prospect of a judge defying a court order,' said Land, President of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. 'One of the foundational principles of American law is that we believe in the rule of law.'"

I wonder if Dr. Land and Jay Sekulow are supportive of the American Revolution, where we rebelled against the British tyranny.

KEYES: One of the great problems I have with that formulation is the assumption that a court order is, in and of itself, a law. That is simply not the case.

Just imagine a simple situation where a deranged judge issues an order to kill an innocent civilian the moment that that person enters the courtroom. Would anybody, not only any ordinary citizen, but even any officer of the court, be obliged to carry out that unlawful order? Obviously not. In the military, soldiers are not obliged to carry out unlawful orders--and especially Justice Moore, who is sworn under his state constitution, who is sworn before his people in terms of his promises before he got elected, and who is obliged under the federal Constitution to defend the right of the people against federal encroachment to make these decisions. He cannot obey this order without surrendering the right of the people, and therefore violating the Constitution.

How can these folks say that he's doing something unlawful, when if he obeyed the judge, he would be doing something unlawful?

DOBSON: We have three minutes left. Would you all tell us where we are down there? What's the mood of the people of Alabama? How much support are you getting? And are you encouraged or discouraged, and do you still have a chance of winning this thing?

MOORE: We're very encouraged, and it's not just the mood of the people of Alabama. We're having people come from California, from New York, from New Jersey, from Florida, from Texas. The people are flocking to Montgomery, not because of me, not because of a monument, but because they understand the principle involved is the acknowledgment of God. And anybody, under any law, who says that you can't acknowledge God completely contradicts the organic law of our country, the Declaration of Independence, according to the United States Code, annotated, which established this nation under God.

This "rule of law" is being confused with a court order which has no reference to the law. They're not even interpreting the words. The judge said, himself, said "I don't even know what religion means."

KEYES: Can I say one thing? I think the Justice--I won't say that you're wrong, Judge Moore, but I think that you're modest. Because I think that your integrity, and the courage that you've shown, and the sterling sincerity and consistency of your life and your career, your heart and your decency are indeed calling to people all over this country, and they're inspiring people to stand up themselves with the same integrity and join in this effort.

And I think that that's what's explaining the whole thing--that God is honoring the integrity of your life.

MOORE: Thank you, sir.

DOBSON: Can you state clearly for people exactly what you hope they will do now?

MOORE: I hope that they will stand up and realize the truth, and stop being deceived by the papers, and the news media, who have tried in the past to distort this issue to be about a wayward judge in violating the order and disregarding the rule of law. No, I'm upholding the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Alabama, which both acknowledge God. And we've got to realize that that's the fundamental basis of our law and our morality and our government, and when we depart from that, we're going to get exactly what we deserve, the destruction of our country.

DOBSON: What, specifically, do you want them to do, in addition to coming to Montgomery. Who do you want them to express their views to?

KEYES: Well, I think that coming to Montgomery's very important, because as this goes on, the media are indeed now, I think, quite stunned at the strength of commitment of people who are coming from all over the country to support Judge Moore, and indeed to become a living monument to the Ten Commandments and the right of the people to honor God, right there in Montgomery.

So, if they have a chance, I think they should come. I also think that they should begin now, immediately, to put pressure on the Congress of the United States to pass the legislation that will except from the jurisdiction of the federal courts, in order to implement the First Amendment, all those matters which by the First and Tenth Amendments are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people--so that the federal judges will no longer be able to engage in this kind of abuse. Congress must act.

DOBSON: Gentlemen, we're out of time. I wish we were not. There's so much more to say, but I just ask our listeners to be in prayer for you, Justice Moore, that He'll give you wisdom, and strength, and courage, and that He will bless you for what you've done so far. And, Alan, thanks for being down there to use your influence. Please do keep us informed, and let us know what we need to pass along to our listeners.

MOORE: Thank you, sir.

KEYES: Thank you all.

DOBSON: Well, Don, that's powerful stuff. I mean, that burns within me. I can't tell you how strongly I feel about what we're talking about here. We're at a turning point, a pivotal point in the history of this country. This is not just another issue.

HODEL: No, it's not. We really are at crisis time, because, unless people are willing to stand up and be counted, what we've got is the perfect usurpation by the courts of our rights as citizens. And they're writing laws now. They've got our good, solid Christian friends persuaded that the law of the land requires separation of church and state. That's not in the Constitution, but if we let them put it there, if they impose it on us, then we lay back and say, "Well, there's nothing we can or should do about this"--this is a time to stand up and be counted, just as Americans in prior times stood up for Civil Rights, and stood up against slavery, and, as you say, stood up against England in the revolution that set us free.

DOBSON: There are times where you have to respond to a higher law.

HODEL: Yes.

DOBSON: I mean, just look at the recent decisions, the judge in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals out there in California--the most liberal appeals court in the land--Judge Goodwin out there ruled that kids can't say the Pledge of Allegiance in the schools. That's not what the people want. That's not what parents want. That's not what the majority of the people in America want, and in fact, when he made this ruling, the Democrats couldn't wait to get to the microphones to say that they disagreed with it, and yet they're fighting tooth and nail to keep judges like Judge Goodwin in place. And we're going to have to come to a point that we say, "Enough is enough!"

And the issue of marriage and homosexuality and this issue of the separation of church and state--they're three of them that we have to absolutely fight for.

HODEL: And they are going to do everything in their power to convince us that we should be, quote, "good citizens," that we should acquiesce. Aren't you Christians? If you're a Christian, are you willing to stand up and be civilly disobedient? And if the American people--Christians and others--don't stand up now, they're not going to have this chance in the future.

DOBSON: Well, this is the time, and this is why we're here on a Sunday afternoon. If people didn't hear us at the top of the program, what we're saying was recorded yesterday as it's heard--this is Monday's broadcast at Focus on the Family. It was recorded in late afternoon Sunday because we just felt like we had to get an up-to-date perspective on what's going on in Alabama. It's not just an Alabama issue, and it is certainly not just Justice Moore. There's a whole lot more at stake here than that.

We're out of time. Let me just say in conclusion that our listeners need to let their voices be heard. Now, Don, there's no way we have time to give all the numbers and tell everybody who to call here, so I'm just going to hit it with a lick and a promise, and the rest of it will be on our website, which is Family.org. Or our telephone number is 1-800-A-FAMILY, or 1-800-232-6459. Where is John Fuller when we need him here?

The number for the Capitol switchboard in Washington is 202-224-3121, and that will be on our website as well.

We ask people to be in prayer, I ask you to encourage Justice Moore every way you can. Go to Alabama, if you can afford to be there. Be a participant. Don't sit on the sidelines through this important issue. And I do hope that you will support Justice Moore in his efforts to keep the monument in place, because of what how much is at stake in that issue.

Put the pressure on the Congress. Goodness, Don, there's just too much here. I'm kind of overwhelmed, and the time is short. Once more, you can find all of this information on our website, Family.org. Or give us a call. This is Focus on the Family. Thank you for being with us on this very important day.