Official Says Duty Trumps Religion

Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor declared last Friday at Harvard Law School that he put his public office above his religion in the national controversy surrounding a Ten Commandments monument in an Alabama courthouse.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson held last year that the presence of the 2.6-ton granite monument in the rotunda of Alabama’s state judicial building was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion and must be removed. Roy Moore, then the chief justice of the Alabama supreme court, refused to comply with Thompson’s order.

Pryor then filed an ethics complaint against Moore last year, resulting in a unanimous decision by the Alabama judicial ethics panel to remove Moore from office.

Pryor said Friday that Moore, in defying a court order, had neglected the duties of his judgeship.

“Judges, of all, have an obligation to respect the law even when they disagree with it,” Pryor said.

At the time, Moore said he was being removed from office because he “acknowledged God.”

But Pryor said Friday that consideration of religion should not prevent a judge from respecting the law.

Pryor cited the Bible extensively to defend his stance.

“Nowhere in the Scriptures does Jesus mention that a monument to the Ten Commandments [must] be displayed in a public courthouse,” he said.

Pryor said that he and Moore—who are both Republicans—agree that the monument was constitutional. Pryor acknowledged that he has the Ten Commandments hanging in his office.

But it is not up to the judiciary to interpret the law to its liking, according to Pryor. He said that Moore’s actions constituted a “dangerous politicization of the law.”

“I believe the court preserves the law, even though I have long contended that it’s constitutional to depict the Ten Commandments in the courthouse,” Pryor said. “Judicial activism, whether from the Left or the Right, is destructive to the Constitution.”

He added that if his official duty ever came into conflict with his religious obligations, he would resign from office. Pryor gave the laws of Nazi Germany as an example of legal institutions that his religion would not allow him to enforce.

“But I don’t see how a Christian can get around the commands of the government—to remain a public official and defy the law,” he said.

Pryor’s speech drew frequent cheers and applause from the audience.

“He gave a wonderful speech. He clearly explained how one can reconcile being Christian and trying to be consistent with one’s Christian values and being a public official,” said Michael F. Lorelli, a second-year law student. Lorelli added that as a Catholic himself, he has always grappled with issues in religion and politics.

Pryor has been nominated by President George W. Bush to a judgeship on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and is currently being considered by the Senate. Senate Democrats are trying to block the nomination with a filibuster.

Moore could not be reached for comment over the weekend.

—Staff writer Yingzhen Zhang can be reached at zhang9@fas.harvard.edu.