Defiant 'Bama Judge Vows Fight

Chief Justice Roy Moore returned to the Alabama Judicial Building and spoke with its manager Friday, as supporters outside prayed that a Ten Commandments monument might remain in the rotunda, despite orders to move it.

Moore stood near the monument as he talked to building manager Graham George, who was instructed Thursday by the rest of the justices on the state's high court to carry out the removal. It wasn't known what was said.

Moore spent much of Thursday vowing to do everything within his power to keep the monument in place. His eight colleagues on the state Supreme Court had ordered the monument taken out after a federal judge's midnight removal deadline passed.

After entering the building Friday, Moore waved to 40 or so supporters but didn't come outside to meet them as they sang and prayed during a vigil kept from sleeping bags and bedrolls.

The Rev. Herman Henderson of Believers' Tabernacle in Birmingham opted to nap on the concrete with his head resting on sheet music for the song, "I Shall Not Be Moved."

They remained quiet throughout the night, prompting police to retreat to their post across the street.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson set the midnight deadline after deciding that sitting in the public rotunda, the monument violated the Constitution's ban on government promotion of a religious doctrine. Thompson has said it could be moved to a private place still within the building.

The judge had threatened $5,000-a-day fines if Moore left the monument in the rotunda.

Building manager Graham George was instructed by the state's high court to "take all steps necessary to comply" with the removal order, justice Gorman Houston said. George declined to comment when asked when, how or where the monument would be moved.

Moore condemned his fellow judges for their orders. In their ruling, the Alabama justices stated they were "bound by solemn oath" to uphold the law.

"I will never deny the God upon whom our laws and country depend," Moore said Thursday in defending the 5,300-pound granite marker, which he installed two years ago and contends is representation of the moral foundation of American law.

"Not only did Judge Thompson put himself above the law, but above God as well," Moore told supporters.

The chief justice had appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency stay of the removal order, but the court rejected it Wednesday. Moore said Thursday he would file a formal appeal with the high court soon "to defend our constitutional right to acknowledge God."

"I cannot forsake my conscience," he said.

Moore lost two other last-minute pleas for a stay.

The 11th U.S. Circuit rejected his request for a stay Tuesday morning, and Moore immediately asked the panel to reconsider. Tuesday afternoon, the appeals court turned him down once more, saying he had failed to ask for a stay within the legal time frame after it ruled against him July 1.

Richard Cohen, an attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center — which sued along with the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State — praised the eight justices.

"Their courageous actions reflect that Justice Moore is a disgrace to the bench and ought to resign or be removed from office," Cohen said.

Moore, who installed the monument in the rotunda of the judicial building two years ago, contended in an interview with the CBS News Early Show that a federal judge has no authority to make him remove it.

"This case is not about a monument and not about politics. It's about the acknowledgement of God," Moore said. "The judge himself said in closing arguments before the court, that the issue is, 'Can the state acknowledge God?'"

"Indeed, we must acknowledge god because our constitution says our justice system is established upon God. For him to say that I can't say who god is is to disestablish the justice system of this state.

Moore argues that he is justified in defying the order because court orders, including those he might have issued himself, are only legitimate if they are based in law.

He also argues that the monument doesn't violate the Constitution's clause forbidding Congress from making laws that promote religion, because "A monument is not a law."

Moore argued the notion of separation of church and state was misunderstood.

"It's not separating God from government. It's not separating the acknowledgement of sovereign from government," he said. "There's a moral law which the state has to honor."