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President John Adams echoed the same conviction: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  9 The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States 229 (Charles Francis Adams, ed. 1854).

President John Adams echoed the same conviction: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  9 The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States 229 (Charles Francis Adams, ed. 1854).

Despite this, a federal judge ordered Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court to remove a display in the state courthouse honoring the Ten Commandments.  He was then himself removed from office for not immediately obeying the federal judge.  In addition to misapplying the Establishment Clause, this decision also infringes on the Tenth and Eleventh Amendments.  The interior decoration of the Alabama Supreme Court is an integral part of traditional state government, never ceded to the federal government.  The citizens of Alabama should have the power to decide what goes in their own Supreme Court building.

Despite this, a federal judge ordered Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court to remove a display in the state courthouse honoring the Ten Commandments.  He was then himself removed from office for not immediately obeying the federal judge.  In addition to misapplying the Establishment Clause, this decision also infringes on the Tenth and Eleventh Amendments.  The interior decoration of the Alabama Supreme Court is an integral part of traditional state government, never ceded to the federal government.  The citizens of Alabama should have the power to decide what goes in their own Supreme Court building.  However, it should be noted that the 14th Amendment extends the prohibitions on Congress making laws abridging liberties to the states.  (See [[incorporation doctrine]]).

Nothing in the First Amendment requires censorship of the Ten Commandments, which neither establishes a religion nor coerces anyone to believe.  Those who oppose the moral message may feign offense, but appeasing the hypersensitive is not a goal of the First Amendment.  Its prohibition on an establishment of religion does not require purging recognition of religion from everything public.  Federal law expressly references God numerous times, as do our coins and officials’ oaths of office.  The United States Supreme Court itself features Moses holding the sacred tablets.

Nothing in the First Amendment requires censorship of the Ten Commandments, which neither establishes a religion nor coerces anyone to believe.  Those who oppose the moral message may feign offense, but appeasing the hypersensitive is not a goal of the First Amendment.  Its prohibition on an establishment of religion does not require purging recognition of religion from everything public.  Federal law expressly references God numerous times, as do our coins and officials’ oaths of office.  The United States Supreme Court itself features Moses holding the sacred tablets.