From the USA)

Giving up Religious Liberty is No Way to Win

March 28, 2007

By Judge Roy Moore

Chairman of the Foundation for Moral Law in Montgomery, Ala., and the author of "So Help Me God."

He is the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was removed from office in 2003 for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument he had placed in the Alabama Judicial Building to acknowledge God.

There is a dangerous trend in recent religious freedom cases: claiming victory in self-inflicted defeat. City councils criticized for having official prayer at their meetings are often changing their policy to keep prayer—but only as a private exercise before the official meeting begins.

When the ACLU pressured the city council of Thomasville, N.C., to stop opening its meetings with prayer, council members decided to adopt a new policy drafted by a religious-liberties organization.

This new policy allows prayer to be given "voluntarily" by a council member acting in his "private capacity," while specifically requiring that such prayer "shall not be listed or recognized ... as part of the public business."

Thomasville becomes the second municipality to adopt this proposed "model" invocation policy designed to appease ACLU demands. On March 12, the city council of Coatesville, Pa., took the same course of action by unanimous vote.

These maneuvers by the city councils of both Thomasville and Coatesville were applauded by their respective constituents and lauded by the religious liberty attorneys who advised them. Nevertheless, such actions designed to avoid a lawsuit are in reality a dangerous concession and a regretful compromise of a basic principle: the public acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Almighty God.

Margaret Downey of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia, responsible for leading the opposition to the Coatesville council prayers, said, "We don't want religion to be a part of city business." The new prayer policies, which prohibit prayer during city business, obviously comports with Downey's ideas of the role of prayer in city government.

If this is what some Christians view as a victory for the Lord, I shudder to imagine what they would consider a defeat.

The public acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Almighty God has always been a part of our public business. In his "first official act" as President, George Washington in his Inaugural Address on April 30, 1789, gave "fervent supplications to that Almighty Being, who rules over the universe [and] who presides in the Councils of Nations."

Our first Congress under the Constitution – a document which the ACLU claims prohibits prayer at council meetings – elected to observe a day of "public thanksgiving and prayer" for "the many signal favors of Almighty God" on the same day they approved the wording of the First Amendment. Moreover, nobody would accuse the United States Supreme Court of violating the Constitution when it opens each session with what the Court has called a prayer: "God save the United States and this Honorable Court."

Efforts to surrender the recognition of God over the public and private affairs of men can be seen in the removal of public displays of religious monuments and symbols.

In Boise, Idaho, city officials voluntarily moved a Ten Commandments display from a public park to private property at a local Episcopal church.

The mayor's spokesperson defended the move by saying that the mayor and city council "feel it's important that the Ten Commandments be displayed in a prominent location" but that "it also needs to be in a safe position where it doesn't become the cornerstone of a protracted legal battle" (emphasis added).

As Benjamin Franklin once noted back in 1759, however, there are some things more important than a "safe position": They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

In the recent Supreme Court case of McCreary County, Kentucky v. ACLU of Kentucky, the county commissioners attempted to take a safe position by surrounding the Ten Commandments with "secular" documents to create a "historical display," and in so doing denied the sovereignty of God.

For all their efforts to appease the ACLU and the federal courts, they lost both their case and the display of God's law.

Christians should never seek "peace and safety" in the power of man (I Thessalonians 5:3).

While we rightfully place blame on the ACLU and liberal judges who conspire to remove the recognition of God's sovereignty from us, we cannot excuse Christians and religious-liberty organizations that appear so willing to do their work for them.

When King Darius signed a decree according to the law of the Medes and Persians that condemned to the lion's den whosoever asked "a petition of any God or man (besides the King) for 30 days," Daniel "went into his house; and his windows being open . . . [he] prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime" (Daniel 6:10).

Daniel could have sought a safe position by closing his shutters or by giving up prayer for 30 days. Instead, he risked death rather than compromise a basic principle.

Voluntary concession of our right to acknowledge the sovereignty of God is not a safe way, but a sure way to lose the culture war. [an error occurred while processing this directive]