• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Ten Commandments judge to run for Alabama governor

Posted on: Wednesday, 11 January 2006, 18:07 CST

By Verna Gates

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was fired in 2003 for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a state courthouse, officially entered the race for Alabama governor on Wednesday.

Moore, 58, a fundamentalist Christian who supports school prayer and opposes gay marriage, paid a $1,927 fee to register for November's gubernatorial race at the state Republican Party headquarters.

He is attempting to wrest Alabama's top job from Bob Riley, a pro-business Republican. Riley has not officially registered to run again, but has announced he will seek re-election, setting up a showdown with Moore in the June 6 primary.

Moore made headlines in 2003 when he defied a federal judge's order to remove a 5,000-pound (2.3-tonne) display of the Biblical Ten Commandments from a public area in the state judiciary building in Montgomery.

A federal judge ruled that the stone marker, installed by Moore and his supporters in 2001, violated the constitutional ban on government promotion of religion.

Moore, who was elected chief justice of the state Supreme Court in 2000, contended the order was unlawful because it countermanded his constitutional obligation to acknowledge God. The standoff ended when state officials removed the display.

Moore later was dismissed from his position on Alabama's high court by a specially convened panel of mostly retired judges but he has become a hero of the Christian right.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category