FUNDAMENTALIST POLITICAL THEATER

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle on the controversy surrounding the illegal Ten Commandments monument inside the Alabama State Courthouse:

(Chief Justice) Moore said he told the commission that he upheld his oath of office by acknowledging God. Moore has said Thompson has no authority to tell the state's chief justice to remove the monument.

And

On Friday, about 100 protesters moved from the steps of the judicial building to a sidewalk in front of the federal courthouse, where Thompson works. Some ripped to pieces and burned a copy of Thompson's ruling. Demonstrators also held a mock trial, in which Thompson was charged with breaking the law of God.

"We hold you, Judge Thompson, and the United States Supreme Court in contempt of God's law," said Flip Benham, director of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

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They know they can't win this one, but that's not really the point. When Moore secretly moved the unconstitutional Christian monument onto state property in the dead of night, he was opening the curtain for a political play that casts lunatic fundamentalists as underdogs, and protectors of the First Amendment as oppressors. This kind of cheap melodrama plays well in the South.

Moore and his Christian brownshirt ilk now present themselves as martyrs. Most fundamentalists will support their cause, which spawns more news coverage and meaningless debate. Consequently, the public discourse is pushed, ever so slightly, in a sympathetic direction. This is not good news. At stake are potential negative long-term ramifications for democracy: remember, this is but a single battle in a sustained, fairly well organized, multi-front war on what Thomas Jefferson called the "wall of separation between church and state."

Sometimes a loss, if it is theatrical enough, is much more valuable than a quiet victory.

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