Activist Says Alabama Voters Remember Where Candidates Stood On Ten Commandments Issue

by Allie Martin
June 4, 2004

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(AgapePress) - A justice on Alabama's Supreme Court who voted to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building was soundly defeated in the Republican primary.

Former Alabama chief justice Roy Moore backed Tom Parker, his former aide who campaigned against Supreme Court justice Jean Brown's vote to remove Moore's monument. Although three other candidates backed by Moore lost to incumbents in Tuesday's statewide Republican primary, Parker managed to defeat the incumbent Judge Brown.

Parker received 51 percent of the votes to the Brown's 49 percent in the primary. Now he will go on to face Democrat Robert Smith, a Mobile attorney, in November's general election.

The results of the race between Parker and Brown are not surprising to John Giles, president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama. He says his group has "maintained all along that any person or elected official that was directly involved in the removal of the Ten Commandments or the removal of the chief justice does have serious political challenges ahead of him."

Giles contends that the public has not forgotten -- and will not forget -- who sided with Moore and who opposed him in his effort to defend the public display of the Ten Commandments and the right of the state to acknowledge God. As far as the results of the primary election are concerned, the Christian Coalition leader says, "I think what this boils down to is there was only one incumbent in this Republican Primary that was involved in the Ten Commandment's issue."

It was Moore's refusal to obey a federal judge's order to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Judicial Building in Montgomery that ultimately resulted in his ouster from his position as chief justice. Since that ruling, Moore has continued to pursue reinstatement through the federal court system.

CCA's president notes that, of all the candidates running against challengers supported by Moore in the Republican primary, the only incumbent that lost was one who opposed the former chief justice's effort to keep the Ten Commandments monument on display.