Who's Behind the Ten Commandments?

Not all Christians want their government to promote the Ten Commandments, not even all evangelical Christians. So who are, then, the Christians who are most vociferous, most adamant, and most active in their efforts to back Judge Roy Moore and ensure that the government of Alabama continues endorsing the Ten Commandments?

David Neiwert cites in his blog a report from Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center:

The crowd was about 50 percent neo-Confederate, with flags and such, even though organizers were supposedly turning Confederate flags away. The crowd was working class and overwhelmingly white -- a careful count by me concluded that out of a maximum 2,000 present (it may have been closer to 1,500), there were at most 20 black faces.

A funny moment came when a clueless Falwell invoked Martin Luther King, saying that Roy Moore was just like King. The entire crowd skipped a beat ... silence ... and then the most tepid applause you ever heard. Later, Falwell compounded the error by referring to America as a land of immigrants, and actually quoted Emma Lazarus. This time, the crowd's answer was deafening silence.

Although it isn't reasonable to conclude that a belief is wrong simply due to the nature of who supports that belief, it is interesting to see what sorts of people exhibit the strongest support in defense of Roy Moore's Ten Commandments monument. They appear to be the most extreme of extremist, Nationalist Christians. Is this how American Christians want to represent themselves to the rest of the nation and to the world?

Potok also explains in his report that the public opinion in Alabama seems to be running against Moore - something he discerns from TV coverage and letters to the editor, although national media coverage would suggest the opposite. If he is correct, we should all keep in mind just how very different things appear from a distance due to how national media is reporting things.

Read More:

• Fundamentalism
• Religious Right
• Christian Extremism
• Religious Intolerance & Bigotry
• Separation of Church and State 101
• Ten Commandments