Alabama Judge on the Ten Commandments

One of the Alabama State Supreme Court Justices who voted to boot Roy Moore out of office has come forward to explain why he took that action. Unfortunately, he reveals that his understanding of the separation of church and state is just as deeply flawed as Moore’s.

The Mobile Register reports:

Through judicial activism, [Champ Lyons Jr.] contends, "We have moved from a prohibition against the establishment of a religion to the removal of all matters remotely related to religion, root and branch, from all aspects of public life, and all without amendment to the Constitution."

Huh? All matters relating to religion are removed from public life? What planet does Lyons live on? I see churches everywhere I go. Politicians continually invoke their god and their religion in speeches. I see religious programming and even entire religious networks broadcasting all the time. Religion removed from public life? Not in America.

Of course, religion is being removed from government control and oversight — government does not, for example, have the authority to pick out certain religious doctrines for favored treatment. That’s a situation that should be acceptable to everyone except those who would prefer that America be some sort of theocracy.

Lyons would like to see the Constitution amended to make the doctrine of judicial review more explicit:

"The judicial power shall include the power to invalidate action by the United States or of a state, but such power shall be limited to occasions where such action exceeds the limits of power conferred by the Constitution or violates some specific prohibition of the Constitution." His proposed amendment also includes language that would protect practices that have been "widespread and unchallenged since the beginning of the Republic."

Why the deference to practices that have been “widespread and unchallenged since the beginning of the Republic”? Slavery would have counted as such a practice, once. Ditto with denying women the right to vote or the second-class status of some minorities. The fact that a practice is widespread or relatively unchallenged doesn’t make it right, moral, or legal. A judge should be educated and intelligent enough to figure that out. If practices are removed from judicial review simply because they are old, we essentially create a statute of limitations on fundamental rights because even if a practice violates a fundamental right, no one can force it to end so long as that right has been violated long enough. Where’s the sense in that?

Read More:

• Secularism 101
• Separation of Church and State 101
• Ten Commandments