The Senate Judiciary Committee hosted an unusually vapid hearing yesterday on “hostility” toward religious expression. It’s a serious topic, but it wasn’t something the committee was approaching with any sincerity. It was pretty obvious — they invited Roy Moore to testify.
I realize why this happened. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), one of Moore’s best buddies, is on the committee and almost certainly pushed for Moore’s inclusion. But to invite a disgraced jurist, who was thrown from the court for multiple violations of judicial ethics, to testify as a victim — that’s right, a victim — of discrimination is sheer lunacy.
Naturally, Moore told senators about how right he is.
Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore told Senate lawmakers Tuesday that he did not break the law by refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building.
[…]
Moore told panel members that the federal appellate court that ordered him to remove the Ten Commandments monument had incorrectly interpreted the Constitution.
He argued that the monument was a lawful “acknowledgement of God,” not a religious display barred by the constitutional separation of church and state.
“I believe in the separation of church and state quite strongly, but separation of church and state does not separate us from God,” Moore said.
I’m not sure how Moore defines church-state separation, but I’m pretty sure it’s a twisted definition.
To hear Moore tell it, government officials can select one faith tradition — as long as it’s his faith tradition — to promote and endorse. Instead of a country that values government neutrality on issues of religion, Moore believes the government can and should espouse Christianity as much as possible.
How this could possibly be consistent with Moore’s alleged support for church-state separation is a mystery whose meaning is hidden deep within a strange man’s warped imagination.
And the Senate Judiciary Committee, of all places, is the worst possible forum for an avowed lawbreaker to speak on such matters. This is the same man who insists the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to the states and that the federal government has no authority to enforce the Constitution in his former courtroom.
Moore shouldn’t even stop by Capitol Hill as a tourist, worse yet a key witness on constitutional freedoms.