ROGUES GALLERY OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT
Alabama's Nutty Judge Roy Moore on Church and State

From PBS's Now, David Brancaccio interviews the man who was thrown off of the Alabama Supreme Court for refusing to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments from the courtroom:

BRANCACCIO: And at the center of that message is the idea that judges need to answer to God. What do you mean by that?

ROY MOORE: The center of the message is judges need to answer to the Constitution. They need to answer to the law. And our law recognizes God. And today, we've divorced God from many things. So, it's not answering directly to God. It's answering to our Constitution, which recognizes the sovereignty of God.

That's the whole purpose of the First Amendment. And the first thing that our forefathers did when they wrote the First Amendment was to acknowledge God. It was all about God. So, when you say that God's not in the Constitution, it is because people don't understand what the Constitution is about.

BRANCACCIO: So, not only about God, but God of the Bible?

ROY MOORE: God of the Bible. That's right. Not God of the Muslim faith. Not God of, you see there was a particular God that gave freedom of conscience.

That's the freedom to believe what you want. I often say that without the first commandment, there would be no First Amendment. Without a recognition of the Judeo-Christian God, the God that gave freedom of conscience, there would be no need to keep the state out the affairs of the person, with regard to the duties you owe to God.

Very clearly, the God of the Muslim faith, for example, does freedom of conscience come from that God? No. Because you go to Saudi Arabia or one of the Arabic countries, and you try to open the Bible, and talk to people. You'd be arrested. Because they mandate the way you worship God. This country does not do that because of the First Amendment. Our forefathers fought for that freedom. And it was guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Click here for the rest, and if you like, go check out the video of the interview at Crooks and Liars.

Moore's reasoning is so convoluted and nutty as to be near incoherent, but I think I follow his point: the Constitution is somehow derived from the Christian God; therefore, Christianity must necessarily play a role in American government. Obviously, that's total bullshit, especially because most of the founding fathers were Deists, and derived the principles on which our government is based from Enlightenment era philosophy, not the Bible. The frightening thing is that many people agree with Moore, and facts be damned.

It strikes me that the wild charisma and absolute certainty of fundamentalist Christian leaders and teachings are what influence so many Americans to take on such destructive beliefs about the issue of church and state. There is nothing analogous to such forces in the United States on the side of reason and rationality. How can sanity possibly prevail? Really, the schools ought to be teaching a heavy dose of critical thinking, but they are so mired in their authority and obedience mandate that they're incapable. It's frightening, but I see nothing on the horizon that can possibly stem the tide of encroaching lunatic fundamentalism. In short, I think we're fucked.

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