The Alabama chief justice who installed a monument bearing the Ten Commandments in the state's supreme court was dismissed on Thursday. He had defied federal court orders to remove the monument, which violated the constitutional separation of church and state.
The case of Chief Justice Roy Moore has become a cause celebre for fundamental Christians and many picketed the hearing of the judicial panel which made Thursday's decision. Supporters of the chief justice prayed and blew ram's horns in protest outside the hearing in Montgomery.
"Finding no other viable alternatives, this court hereby finds that Roy S. Moore be removed from his position as chief justice of Ala-bama," said a statement from the nine-member Alabama court of the judiciary, which consisted of his fellow judges and legal specialists.
PHOTO: AP
They ruled that he had "failed to respect and comply with the law" and had "failed to observe the high standards" required by his office.
Moore was unrepentant.
"We fought a good fight," he said afterwards. "We have kept the faith ... I'd do it all the same all over again. God is the basis of our law and our government. I cannot and will not violate my conscience."
He indicated that the battle over the two-tonne monument was not over, although the US Supreme Court has said it has no intention of intervening.
The case against him was led by the state's attorney general, William Pryor, who was once an ally of the judge and had supported him at rallies. But Pryor said that Moore, by his behavior, "had put himself above the law."
He was aware when he installed the monument that it would cause a dispute.
It was moved in August from its original location at the entrance to the court after a ruling that it had no place in a court of law. It is now in storage.
Members of the religious right and civil liberties groups have gathered to protest at the monument's removal.
Opponents of the judge have pointed out that the commandment not to kill is regularly ignored by the Alabama courts, which support and impose the death penalty.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
RSS