This whole event should be titled, "How to get yourself elected Governor of Alabama."
Crowds Flock to Back Alabama Judge on Biblical Monument
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
MONTGOMERY, Ala., Aug. 20 - They came streaming in from all directions, wearing their crosses and Confederate T-shirts, carrying dog-eared bibles and bottles of water and enough Power Bars to outlast a siege.
One man even walked from Texas, 20 miles a day, in a frock.
Their mission: to protect the rock, Roy's rock.
Their morale: high and rising.
Today is the deadline for Chief Justice Roy S. Moore of Alabama to remove the 5,280-pound monument of the Ten Commandments he installed in the lobby of the state supreme court.
But the rock ain't moving.
Despite threats of having his state fined $5,000 a day and being held in contempt of court, Justice Moore vowed to disobey a federal court order that begins at midnight.
This afternoon, the United States Supreme Court refused to block the removal of the Ten Commandments monument.
"If they want to get the Commandments," Justice Moore said in a statement today, "they're going to have to get me first."
His obstinacy smacks of segregation-era defiance, of state rights versus "the feds," of George Wallace's notorious ? and failed ? stand in the school house door.
But many people like that.
Today, hundreds of supporters descended on Montgomery and turned the steps of the state's highest court into a spectacle of chanting, kneeling, praying and crying, shouting out the Almighty's name and at times lying on their bellies to block passers-by.
"This is not about a monument!" bellowed Rev. Pat Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition. "This is about resisting tyranny!"
"Amen!" the crowd boomed.
Gene Chapman, the man who came the 700 miles from Austin, Tex., said, "This is a culture war."
Then Mr. Chapman added, in a thin voice: "I'd go to jail. Happily."
On top of the long walk, he's been on a 10-day hunger strike.
It's not clear what is going to happen next.
The Alabama's governor's office could get involved. Or the state attorney general.
Justice Moore could be even thrown in jail.
Federal District Judge Myron H. Thompson has tried to take the path of least resistance. It was way back on Nov. 18 when he issued his own commandment: Thou shalt remove thy monument.
Judge Thompson found that sticking a monument of the Ten Commandments that rises from the floor of the court's lobby like a mini-version of Grant's tomb was "nothing less than an obtrusive year-round religious display."
But he has granted Justice Moore up until now to comply with the removal order. Justice Moore filed several appeals to protect the chunky granite sculpture, known as Roy's rock. But no federal court has sided with him.
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