August 27, 2003

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: As that was happening today, as they were taking those Ten Commandments out, what were you thinking?

DR. JAMES DOBSON: Well, I've been heavy of heart about it, but in a larger scope of things, this really is not about that monument, it's not about the Ten Commandments, it's not even about this good man, Justice Moore. It's about judicial tyranny, where the courts--and, especially, the Supreme Court--have been determined to take God out of every vestige of public life, any reference to Him, and to interfere more and more with our private lives. That's the issue. That's the reason I'm involved.

HANNITY: And you are asking your radio audience--and you have a huge radio audience--you are asking people to go tomorrow. You're going to be holding a protest. You, I understand, you'll be speaking, Alan Keyes will be there speaking--is that correct? Tomorrow at noon?

DOBSON: I will be there at noon tomorrow, and I hope many, many other people will be there.

HANNITY: All right. But you raise a point about the courts, and I think a lot of people forget this because they raise the question, "Why is Chief Justice Moore ignoring the courts?" And he's been on this program, and I think he's explained it fairly articulately. Courts can be wrong. They've been wrong before. Dred Scott upheld slavery, Plessy vs. Ferguson upheld segregation, Roe vs. Wade allows abortion, which a lot of us think is immoral. So, I mean, courts can be wrong--correct?

DOBSON: They can be, and as a matter of fact, Thomas Jefferson was very concerned about the runaway court, and wrote about it and talked about it, especially after Marbury vs. Madison, and he saw the possibility of an oligarchy, of a small group of elites in black robes who would force their will on the rest of the country. That's what he was concerned about, and that's what we have.

I want to tell you something, Sean. When I was in the fourth grade, I remember it as though it were yesterday, my teacher went to the board and she talked about the balance of power, you know, the fact that the three departments of government balanced one another--checks and balances is what she talked about. And that's the way that the Framers intended it, but we don't have it. The court is out of control, and it is not being balanced by the Congress.

HANNITY: See, I think there's this effort afoot here, and I don't think there's any doubt about it, as evidenced by our rapid social decline, I think what's happening here is an effort to remove God from the public square. And by that I mean we have--when the Supreme Court goes into session, it's "God bless the United States and this honorable court." Congress opens with a prayer. The Senate opens with a prayer. "In God We Trust" on coinage. "One nation under God." Our Declaration of Independence, our founding document, has enormous references to the relationship to God and natural law.

DOBSON: Sean, in the Supreme Court building, itself, there are three references, three depictions of either Moses or the Ten Commandments. How then, tell me, can the Supreme Court or one of its representatives try to go down to the state of Alabama and tell people how they're going to decorate their state building? It is crazy.

I heard Bill O'Reilly just now talking about the fact that this judge is duty-bound, Justice Moore is duty-bound, to uphold the law. Actually, he took an oath of office to the Constitution of the state of Alabama, which requires the acknowledgment of God.

HANNITY: Would the court be . . . would somebody be duty-bound to uphold Dred Scott or segregation?

DOBSON: Well, the President of the United States Abraham Lincoln was not duty-bound to do it. He defied the law.

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Dr. Dobson, it's Alan. Good to have you back on the program.

DOBSON: Hello, Alan.

COLMES: Welcome. Good to have you with us.

Look, as a federal judge--regardless of how you feel about what he did about the Ten Commandments--as a state judge, doesn't he have the obligation to obey a federal judge? You have Bill Pryor, the conservative Christian who's attorney general, saying that's what he needs to do. Richard Land, President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, says that's what he needs to do. Pat Robertson says he's in contempt of court. Doesn't he at least have to listen to what a higher judge says?

DOBSON: Well, he's listening to a higher law, and there are times when you have to obey a higher law. And there's a law written on his heart. He's also being faithful to the constitution of the state of Alabama. And so, I don't think, particularly since this federal judge cannot cite chapter and verse. There's no law here. There is no case law. There is nothing in the Constitution that would give him the power to come down to the state of Alabama and try to dictate what happens there.

COLMES: Do you feel of evangelical Christians--let me, actually, this is a question phrased by Richard Land, who I just mentioned: "Do evangelical Christians really want to say that the United States government is no longer a legitimate government, that we're no longer obligated to obey the courts when we disagree with their rulings?" And let be just put in a question, doesn't a judge, as a role model, as a state employee, have a responsibility to show that he obeys what a higher court says?

DOBSON: He has a responsibility to obey his oath in the state of Alabama--especially when the judge's order is not linked to law. A judge's order is not law, and it certainly isn't law if he can't point to a statute that makes it law.

COLMES: Can I walk into a courtroom and say the same thing? Can I walk into a courtroom and say that, and say, "I don't like what you're saying"?

DOBSON: Let me just tell you one thing. I met with Judge Moore--I mean, I met with Dr. Land this morning. He's a good friend of mine, I like him personally, I agree with most of what he says. He's just wrong in this instance.

COLMES: Don't we have, Dr. Dobson, a Fourteenth Amendment that's made the Bill of Rights applicable to the states? That's what the Fourteenth Amendment says.

DOBSON: Let's talk about the Tenth Amendment. The Tenth Amendment says that anything that is not given to the Congress or handled by the Congress is then reserved for the states.

And this has not resulted from an act of Congress. You know, the Establishment Clause of the Constitution says Congress shall make no law referencing the establishment of a religion. There is no law. There is no law.

COLMES: We have a Fourteenth Amendment, Dr. Dobson, that has historically said that the Bill of Rights are applicable to the states. It was initially made an amendment on the slavery issue, but has since been interpreted to mean that the first ten amendments don't just pertain to the federal government, but that those rights exist in states, as well.

DOBSON: And Alan, that is the problem. The Supreme Court has interpreted it that way. The Constitution does not say that.

COLMES: So, the Bill of Rights should not apply to states?

DOBSON: The separation of church and state in this instance has no relevance. First of all, it is not a church! The Ten Commandments are not a church!

HANNITY: Dr. Dobson, stay right there. We're going to going to continue this in just a minute. More with Dr. Dobson, and that case we're studying, we're watching, out of Montgomery.

[BREAK]

COLMES: Back to Dr. James Dobson. Dr. Dobson, let me put up on the screen an interchange that Judge Roy Moore had with Justice, Judge Thompson--Judge Myron Thompson, with whom he discussed this when he went to court last year to talk about it. And the judge says, "When you refer to that God, you mean the Judeo-Christian God?" and Moore says, "Yes. The God that both the Jews and Christians worship." And Thompson said, "Why is that significant?" and Justice Moore said, "Any faith that worships a different god doesn't worship the God that gave us freedom of conscience."

So, here it's already exclusionary. He is choosing which god he is choosing to install in the lobby there. It's not anybody's god or every god, it's not universal like the god on coins. It's a specific god, according to Roy Moore.

DOBSON: Well, Alan, like it or not, the Founding Fathers did just that. They established the American law on the Judeo-Christian system of values, including the Ten Commandments. That's what they did.

COLMES: Did they ever say "Judeo"? Were Jews even a . . . was that even an issue back then?

DOBSON: They talked about the Bible many times, and they certainly talked about God, and they built those values into the foundational documents. It is not the Koran. You will not find references to Islam. And if you did, you would not have freedom of speech.

COLMES: But Dr. Dobson . . .

DOBSON: The thing about the Christian perspective on religious views is that is allows tolerance for other people to believe other things. And we all have the right . . .

COLMES: Well, then, could I put a Koran in there?

DOBSON: . . . to believe that.

COLMES: Could I put an Islamic icon, like a Koran?

DOBSON: You have every right to believe that, or to believe nothing. But when you start talking about the history of this country, it is the Judeo-Christian value system. And the Ten Commandments have played a key role for 400 years in this country, and that's why they belong where they were.

HANNITY: Our common law and our statutes, Dr. Dobson, were all based on Judeo-Christian principles. Our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, makes repeated references to God, quote, "The laws of nature and nature's God," "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," "the Supreme Judge of the world." When the Constitution was transmitted to Congress for ratification before it was sent, the president of the convention, of course, was George Washington. He signed it, dating it as follows, "Done in the convention by unanimous consent of the states, the seventeenth day of September, the year of our Lord." That Judeo-Christian connection.

DOBSON: And we're really getting to the crux of it here, because for 41 years, the Supreme Court has been on a campaign to eliminate that perspective from public life. It started in 1962, removing prayer from the schools, the next year Bible-reading from the schools, most recently the Pledge of Allegiance because it says "under God." The Court is determined to shove this down our throats, and I think it's time to say enough is enough.

HANNITY: You're very accurate in pointing out, Dr. Dobson, I think people maybe who don't know any of the history of this here, or haven't read a lot about our Founding Fathers--they were deeply religious men, basing their laws in Judeo-Christian ethics. But I think what's . . . even at the time when our Constitution was ratified, several states had actually had official religions. Most people don't realize, up until the early 1960's, prayer in school, the Lord's Prayer, was said on a regular basis. Bible-reading took place in public schools. If the fear among liberals and ACLU supporters is some type of theocracy, certainly it would have happened then.

And when we talk about the Establishment Clause, separation of church and state--which is not in the Constitution--this is not what our Founders wanted.

DOBSON: Sean, I think the letters ABG apply here: "Anything But God." This afternoon, I don't have this verified yet, we're trying to find out. This afternoon, one of your talk show competitors said that a monument to homosexuality was put in the state capital either today or yesterday, without a peep of protest from anybody. "Anything But God." And this court is determined to take God out, and I think our people need to besiege Congress . . .

COLMES: Dr. Dobson, we have to go. But by the way, Sean has no competitors, as you know, in radio.

And by the way, we can't confirm that, Fox News cannot confirm that. I just want to be clear about this with our views.

DOBSON: And I can't either. I can't either. I'm going to find out.

COLMES: Thank you, sir, for being with us tonight.

DOBSON: Thank you, Alan.

[NOTE: Homosexual activists reportedly installed a monument "In Honor of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Veterans Killed in Action" at the Capitol Park in Sacramento, California, on Tuesday, August 26th.]