For his defiance, Moore has become a home-state hero, paving the way for a future run for a U.S. Senate seat. For her brave stand, Melinda Maddox has been run out of town. “He’s the most popular man in Alabama, and I am the least popular woman,” says Maddox, a plaintiff in the lawsuit that declared Moore’s monument unconstitutional and called it “nothing less than an obtrusive year-round religious display.”
The granite monument, about the size of a washing machine, rests in the rotunda of the Supreme Court building in Montgomery. Moore secretly installed it two years ago under cover of night and has made a reputation for himself by defying repeated court orders to remove it. Moore first rose to prominence in the late 1990s as the “Ten Commandments Judge” when he refused under penalty of law to remove from his courtroom a pair of rosewood tablets that he had carved himself. He ran for chief justice on the notoriety he gained from the incident and was elected in November 2000.
As the presidential race heats up and the Republicans move to consolidate power on Capitol Hill, religion is shaping up as a wedge issue designed to rally voters on the right. Congress got into the act when the House of Representatives voted on July 25 by 260 to 161 to block the federal government from spending money to enforce the court order to move the monument known as “Roy’s Rock.” Not since former governor George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door 40 years ago to protest desegregation has a high elected official so openly flouted a federal ruling.
Just as Wallace built a political career on the disaffection of white voters, Moore is exploiting the fears of Christians who believe they are a persecuted minority whose symbols are being destroyed, when in reality the religious right rules in Alabama, and in the White House.
In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Melinda Maddox remembered how livid she was when Moore held a press conference in August 2001 to reveal he had brought the two-ton “Ten Commandments” into the Judicial Building the night before, and would look to a higher power to decide cases. “I wanted to do the suing; I wanted to litigate,” she said.
Maddox practiced law in Brewton, Ala., which proudly counts itself among the “100 Best Small Towns in America,” at least according to its chamber of commerce. She also headed the ACLU legal committee in Alabama. But Americans United for Separation of Church and State persuaded her she’d be a better plaintiff. The weekend after her name appeared in the newspaper, somebody shot BB pellets through the windows of her house. Then her black Ford Expedition was keyed on both sides while it was in the parking lot outside her office. “I was the local outcast,” she says.
When the case went to trial in October 2001, Maddox came home to 72 messages on her answering machine. “They were about how I should be run out of town and didn’t deserve to live with decent, God-fearing people,” she says. “There were calls to my mom and dad about how they should be ashamed for raising a heathen.”
Maddox’ side won the case, but that only heightened the animosity against her. One of 38 attorneys in Brewton (and the only woman among them), she saw her once-robust practice dry up. Clients worried that if her name appeared on an appeal, they would automatically lose. She lost her race for county commissioner. Voters said they couldn’t support a woman who took on such a good, God-fearing man as Judge Moore. “You’re fighting the wrong battle,” they told her.
Maddox closed her Brewton office last month and moved with her husband to Mobile, Ala., a city where she has some anonymity. “[Since I moved here,] nobody has called and said, ‘You should die’,” she says.
Judge Moore says he takes his cues from God. He says the U.S. judicial system is founded upon acknowledging God and that to remove the monument would be “a disacknowledgment of God.” He likens himself to Martin Luther King Jr. in sanctioning civil protest to overturn an unjust law. But unlike Dr. King, who counseled his supporters to turn the other cheek, Moore and his followers don’t treat their opponents with Christian charity.
Maddox was ostracized and lost her practice. She received death threats. But she’s not backing down. “I have no problem with God anywhere else but in government buildings,” she says. “If he wants to move that monument across the street and buy a little piece of land and put it on it, and privately fund it, that’s fine. But the Constitution says that government will not establish a state religion, and by sanctioning Protestant Christianity as Alabama’s religion, he’s left everybody else out of the loop.”
Speaking out against religion is risky in America. A poll shows that 77 percent of Alabamians favor keeping the monument where it is. That’s a political base for Moore, who has his eye on a Senate seat. But fewer than 40 percent are willing to foot the bill ($5,000 a day in fines, plus legal fees) for Moore’s indulgence. Two deputy attorney generals appointed by the state have already spent a million dollars of taxpayers’ money defending Moore. The state’s budget deficit is serious enough that schools could be forced to close, yet anxious religionists think it’s more important to contribute to Moore’s legal defense fund.
“Idiocy abounds,” says Maddox.
