(CBS) Roy Moore, the former chief justice of Alabama, believes that the Ten Commandments are the moral foundation of the U.S. judicial system, and that led him to take a stance that cost him his job.

He is considered a hero by some and a rebel by others. But either way, Moore is refusing to give up.

On Nov. 14, 2003, Moore became the fourth chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court to be removed from office. His removal took place after years of controversy surrounding a 2-1/2-ton granite monument to the Ten Commandments that Moore placed in the rotunda of the Alabama judicial building in 2001.

A little more than a year later, Moore is releasing a book about his experience called, "So Help Me God: The Ten Commandments, Judicial Tyranny, And The Battle for Religious Freedom." Read an excerpt.

He tells The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm his story was not really told until this book was written.

"People are so confused about the concept of separation of church and state, the rule of law and what it means, and about the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, and about the relationship between God and our country," he says.

Actually, Moore says that people do not understand that the First Amendment would not exist without the first law of the Ten Commandments.

He explains, " 'I am the Lord thy God. Thou shall not have other gods before me' is a particular god identifiable with this nation, which gave us freedom of conscience without which we would have no prohibition against government interference thereof."

And that is very important, he says, in order to uphold the Constitution of the United States. But could he have acknowledged God without that monument?

"Sure," Moore says, "You can acknowledge God in many different ways, but this monument, the Ten Commandments, identifies a particular God. The God upon which this nation was founded and it is very necessary to identify that God because it is this God that gives us freedom of conscience.

"Throughout our history, our forefathers, jurists, for example, like Joseph Story, recognized that freedom of conscience comes from this God. In the 1833 commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, regarding the First Ammendment, Joseph Story said the rights of conscience are, indeed, beyond the reach of human power. They are given by God. They cannot be encroached upon by any human authority without a criminal disobedience of the precepts of the natural as well as revealed religion. Joseph Story recognized as well as Jefferson and Madison and all of the forefathers that the freedom of conscience comes from God."

An article on the New York Times explores Abraham Lincoln's and George Washington's beliefs in God. Asked why this has now become so important in the national debate, Moore says, "I think there's an awakening going on across our country as to what this country is about, what the Constitution is there for. I think people are coming to the realization that this nation was different for a reason."

On March 2, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about whether the Ten Commandments monument can remain on the Texas Capitol grounds, as well as the Ten Commandments display in courthouses in Kentucky. Moore wrote court briefs. Asked about his position, he says his is very different from those two cases defending monuments.

"There's a very great deception that's been going on for 60 years in this country, that you can't recognize the sovereignty of God because of the First Amendment. And indeed, in my case, we said that the monument recognizes the sovereign holy God. Their cases, they're arguing history and ubiquity, for example."

Moore notes, "If you reduce God enough that you don't acknowledge a sovereign God, they'll let you do it. Well, that's government interfering with what you think. It is completely wrong and is completely outside the jurisdiction of the federal government.

In the book, Moore also details his struggle through life, describing his service in Vietnam and how he worked his way through school, washing tables in the lunchroom, how he sat at the highest judicial office in Alabama, and how he lost his job.

"I lost my job," Moore says. "But I did not lose my oath to office. I kept the oath to the Constitution and the rule of law, and that's what I'm proudest of. And I am not sorry about that."

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