Politics

How Christians Shaped the Political Future of Alabama

On Tuesday September 26, 2017, Roy Moore soundly defeated Senator Luther Strange in a primary runoff for Alabama’s open senate seat.

The seat was vacated by former Senator Jeff Sessions when President Trump appointed him to be the U.S. Attorney General. Former Alabama Governor Robert Bentley appointed Strange to temporarily replace Sessions. The election to decide who would permanently claim Sessions’ seat was set to happen during the mid-term election cycle in 2018. However, after Bentley resigned following a sex scandal, his replacement Governor Kay Ivey moved the race up to December 2017.

Fighting the Establishment

 
Steve Bannon and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin campaigned for Moore while Chuck Norris, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins all endorsed him. Former University of Alabama running back Siran Stacy was another of Moore’s staunch supporters. Endorsing and campaigning for Moore, the former football player sternly criticized abortion and same-sex marriage at a rally. Trump campaigned and endorsed Moore’s rival, Luther Strange.
 
Unapologetically outspoken about the necessity of religion and morality in public life, many viewed Moore as the anti-establishment candidate in the runoff. Before running for office, he founded the Foundation for Moral Law, an organization that works to “restore the knowledge of God in law and government and to acknowledge and defend the truth that man is endowed with rights , not by our fellow man, but by God.”
 
“When we become one nation under God again, when liberty and justice for all reigns across our land, we will be truly good again,” Moore said during a debate with Strange in September.

During this critical debate, he also rebuked political correctness and transgender individuals’ choice of what bathroom they use. Undoubtedly, Moore’s longstanding support for traditional values helped him win the votes of conservative Christians in Tuesday’s contest.
 

Fight for the Ten Commandments

 
Perhaps, Moore’s most notable stand for Christian values surrounded the Ten Commandments – which launched into political fame in his home state.

On January 15, 2001, he was sworn in as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Soon after taking office, Moore announced plans to commission a large monument of the Ten Commandments. His design, a 5,280-pound block of granite, featured two large carved tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments and quotes from the Declaration of Independence, the national anthem, and a few Founding Fathers. The monument was installed in the central rotunda of the state judicial building on July 31, 2001.
 
On October 30, 2001, several groups including the ACLU of Alabama, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama pursuing removal of the monument. The trial began on October 15, 2002. On November 18 of that same year, federal U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled the Ten Commandments monument violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

After refusing to remove the monument, Moore was officially suspended from his position on August 22, 2003. At a hearing, Moore said, “to acknowledge God cannot be a violation of the Canons of Ethics. Without God there can be no ethics.”
 

Stance on Same-sex Marriage

 
On November 6, 2012, Moore reclaimed his seat as Chief Justice of Alabama by defeating his opponent Judge Bob Vance. To the chagrin of many conservative Christians, on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage legal across the country. On January 6, 2016, Moore issued an administrative order commanding lower court judges to not issue any marriage license contrary to the Alabama Marriage Protection Act or the Alabama Sanctity of Marriage Amendment.

After being suspended from the bench yet again for fighting for the morals many conservative Christians hold dear, Moore resigned from the Alabama Supreme Court on April 26, 20017. At this time, he announced his candidacy for Session’s seat.
 
Conservative Christians are used to Republican politicians espousing their faith in God and support of traditional values while campaigning for office. Sadly, most of these politicians seem to forget or ignore their Christian stances after they take office.

With Moore, Christians in Alabama truly know they have a candidate who will not hesitate to fight for what is important to them.

~ 1776 Christian


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