(By Scott Kaufman)
Alabama’s chief justice: Buddha didn’t create us so First Amendment only protects Christians (via Raw Story )
Speaking at the Pastor for Life Luncheon, which was sponsored by Pro-Life Mississippi, Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court declared that the First Amendment only applies to Christians because “Buddha didn’t create us, Mohammed didn…
This post was republished using Repost. Please read it on Informed Comment directly: https://www.juancole.com/2014/05/alabamas-amendment-christians.html
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Related video:
Ten years after Ten Commandments monument removal, Roy Moore has no regrets
This is really confusing. Quoting Moore: “They didn’t bring the Koran over on the pilgrim ship,” The Mayflower came in 1620. It did not bring Thomas Jefferson who was born in 1743. Jefferson was truly intellectual, and had a huge library. He easily could have had a Koran in his library. Not sure what Moore meant—saying first amendment applying only to Christians. The amendment provides for both freedom of religion and quoting Jefferson: “a wall of separation” between gov’t and church. Jefferson, Madison and others, were said to be Deists, and not Christians.
Thomas Jefferson did have a copy of the Koran in his library. A book was recently written about the Founding Father’s and their views of Islam. Jefferson (as with many Enlightenment thinkers) had many interesting ways of looking at religions. None of which this guy apparently knows anything about, too bad ‘secular law schools’ do not have stronger history programs.
Not confusing to me. Roy Moore is simply a misguided, ignorant buffoon. If he was elected to his current position, it does not speak well of the Alabama electorate. There is really nothing more to say. Roy Moore is simply not qualified for such an important position and the electorate need to put pressure to get him to resign. Unbelievable.
And thus the playbook is revealed; they will keep screaming that they are oppressed and threatening violence until they are the only ones allowed to vote. Now what are we going to do about it?
Thomas Jefferson most definitely did have a Koran in his library. In fact the first Muslim to be sworn into Congress used Jefferson’s Koran to take his oath on: link to loc.gov.
Jefferson’s Qu’ran is, in fact, kind of a big deal: link to thedailybeast.com
In fact, Thomas Jefferson did own a Koran. It was used by Rep. Ellison for his swearing-in as a Congressman.
that is one of the scariest things I have areas in a while. How do we create and elect people whom are so small minded?
@mervon Terrifying.
Alabama’s death toll and high uninsured numbers due to spite and ignorance, thanks to such thinking and beliefs, of the new health policy becomes less surprising…
link to juancole.com
I hear it’s getting hard for black people to vote there too. Again. In order to mitigate a Voter ID law that requires photo ID, the state had to issue free ID cards, but it won’t begin to offset the number of people discouraged from voting. If you make it hard to vote, only fanatics vote – and which race in the South comprises all the fanatics we see?
What a twit.
Oh, so close…
Oooof! Thanks Roy Moore (how ’bout no Moore Roy!) for that generous splash of stupid acid in our face on a Saturday morning.
Of course the Vikings may have predated the Pilgrims, so my money is not protecting the rights of free expression for anyone who doesn’t acknowledge the sovereignty of Odin and Thor and who does not believe that the eventual destination of the soul is Valhalla (after, of course, being burned a la Kirk Douglas on a Viking Ship), where everyone enjoys lots of fighting, tankards of Mead and feasts on thick slices of Spam (that is, if you believe in the Monty Python heresy) for all eternity.
Ultimately, therefore, the Constitution only protects those of us who wear long beards, broad swords, chain mail, horned helmets and worship idols. So sorry Roy Moore, your historical analysis is flawed and has been found WANTING.
Unless I missed it, nowhere in the above clips does he say the first amendment only protects Christians; it seems to me he is saying that this nation was founded on the Bible and “the God of the Holy Scriptures.” Not saying I agree with him, but it would be similar to a Judge in Saudi Arabia or Egypt saying that their country is founded on the Quran and Allah.
Yeah, well if we substitute the Bible for the Constitution, then the non-Christians are in big trouble, which Moore well knows and it is what he is angling for.
I think you are right. At the same time, he seems to be saying that the Christian Bible is the only word of God, that the Mayflower folk were exclusively Christians, and “religion” pertains to the worship of Christ. Religious diversity consists of Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Protestant, etc…variations on Christianity in Moore’s world. No Buddha. No Mohammed, etc. Moore is so full of crap. The original Pilgrims did not write the Constitution. Moore is wrong about so much. Where to begin?
The incredible thing is that Moore is the chief jurist of a state. He is supposed to be a brainy, learned, impartial interpreter of the law and an expert on the constitution. He is none of this. He is a Charlatan.
I think judge Moore missed an opportunity. Given the sovereignty of Christianity in our country, he should have bundled the 2nd Amendment with the 1st. While perhaps implicit, the right to bear arms certainly, in the same manner, belongs exclusively to Christians, especially since it is far more tangible, and consequential than free speech.
I think that to someone like judge Grove, Jefferson, the slave owner, carries more prestige and ascendancy, than Jefferson, the scholar with a Koran in his library.
I wonder if he recuses himself any time a non-Christian plaintiff or defendant is involved in case before him. Seems like an easy call.
That’s next. The key is to expand racial profiling, and create legal exceptions to their beloved right to bear arms for probable “terrorists”, meaning blacks, Moslems, environmentalists, etc. I heard Kansas is already talking about distinguishing between a “state citizen” and a “Federal citizen” to get out of equal enforcement of voting laws. Maybe once Alabama rules you’re only a “Federal citizen”, you suddenly find it much harder to get a gun.
This game can be played many ways, as long as we cynically pretend that white supremacy is not the end game.
A-holes like this one make me sorry I bothered to give three-plus years of my life to destroy Adolf Hitler……I really think they MUST have been first cousins…….probably with one common parent.
The Mason-Dixon line certainly serves effectively as a foolproof filter to prevent the leakage of common sense southward. Now if it could only be adjusted to prevent the leakage of idiocy northward, we might….just MIGHT….have the basis for a decent country.
Alas, not in my lifetime!!!!
Clearly the man can’t distinguish between gods and prophets of god. Mohammad, a prophet, worshiped the same god that the prophets Moses and Abraham did and thus as do Christians. How do these delusional people fool enough voters to convince them they are mentally stable to run for public office
Mental stability is not what some voters want. Recall Nixon’s Madman Theory. Politicians have gotten lots of votes by promising to terrorize “threatening” countries with irrational acts. If you hate your fellow citizens as much as you hate other countries, you might want your leaders to be madmen at home as well. But always, you must believe that your enemy is an imminent threat who can no longer be stopped by civilized means.