Today is the 248th anniversary of the signing of Colonial America’s Declaration of Independence, which begins:
In Congress, July 4, 1776The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of AmericaWhen in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Then follows a l-o-n-g list of the Colonists’ grievances against the King of England, which I do not include here.
Then comes the the declaration of independence:
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Then come the signatures of the men who signed the document.
I highlighted in bold the 4 references to a Deity from which the signers of the Declaration of Independence drew their authority.
There is no mention of Christianity in the Declaration of Independence, whose principal author, Thomas Jefferson, was a Deist.
Many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Free Masons.
The 4 references to Deity do not resemble Christian names for God.
Amendment 1, US Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Founding Fathers were acutely aware of how governments in Europe and the British Isles had become one with the Church and had persecuted, imprisoned and killed “heretics”. The Founding Fathers did not want that to happen in America. Thus, Amendment 1’s, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
After the Revolutionary War, the “Give me liberty, or give me death” signer of the Declaration of Independence, Patrick Henry, became the Governor of Virginia. He tried to get the Virginia Legislature to pass a law that effectively would make Christianity the state religion of Virgina. Thomas Jefferson and another signer of the Declaration of Independence, James Madison, who would become known as the Father of the Constitution and America’s 4th president, led the charge to defeat Patrick Henry's law.
Later, Jefferson cut out of his own Bible passages from the New Testament about things Jesus said, which Jefferson liked, and he made them into his own bible, which became known as The Jefferson Bible. The passages Jefferson liked were about living life differently, much easier to say than do.
Amendment 14, Section 1, US Constitution, made the Constitution and Amendments 1-10, known as the Bill of Rights, applicable to the States:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Every anti-abortionist I have known was a religious-right Christian. In the law is the doctrine, res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself.
Recently, Louisiana’s state legislature passed a law requiring The Ten Commandments to be displayed in Louisiana’s public schools. The Ten Commandments are part of the Jewish Scriptures and are in the Old Testament of Christendom’s Bible. How the 6 religious-right Justices on the US Supreme Court will rule on what Louisiana did is anyone’s guess.
Once upon a time, the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore, a far-right Christian, had the 10 Commandments installed in the Alabama Supreme Court building in Montgomery, the state Capital. During the Civil War, Montgomery was the Capital of the Confederacy after it was moved there from Richmond, Virginia.
From Wikipedia:
Moore attended West Point and served as a company commander in the Military Police Corpsduring the Vietnam War. After graduating from the University of Alabama Law School, he joined the Etowah County district attorney's office, serving as an assistant district attorney from 1977 to 1982. In 1992, he was appointed as a circuit judge by Governor Guy Hunt to fill a vacancy, and was elected to the position at the next term. In 2001, Moore was elected to the position of chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama. Moore was removed from his position in November 2003 by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary for refusing a federal court's order to remove a marble monument of the Ten Commandments that he had placed in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building.
Moore sought the Republican nomination for the governorship of Alabama in 2006 and 2010, but lost in the primaries. Moore was elected again as chief justice in 2013, but he was suspended in May 2016, for defying a U.S. Supreme Court decision about same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges), and resigned in April 2017.[4][5] On September 26, 2017, he won a primary runoff to become the Republican candidate in a special election for a U.S. Senate seat that had been vacated by Jeff Sessions.[6]
In November 2017, during his special election campaign for U.S. Senate, several public allegations of sexual misconduct were made against Moore.[7] Three women stated that he had sexually assaulted them when they were at the respective ages of 14, 16 and 28;[7][8] six other women reported that Moore – then in his 30s – pursued sexual relationships with them while they were as young as 16. Moore acknowledged that he may have approached and dated teenagers while he was in his 30s, but denied sexually assaulting anyone.[9][10] President Donald Trumpe ndorsed Moore a week before the election,[11] after which some Republicans withdrew their opposition to Moore. Democrat Doug Jones won the election, becoming the first Democrat since 1992 to win a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama.[12]
Moore's political views have been characterized as far-right and Christian nationalist.[13] He has attracted national media attention and controversy over his views on race, homosexuality, transgender people, and Islam, his belief that Christianity should order public policy,[14][15] and his past ties to neo-Confederate and white-nationalist groups.[16][17][18][19][20] Moore was a leading voice in the "birther" movement, which promoted the false claim that president Barack Obama was not born in the United States.[21][22] He founded the Foundation for Moral Law, a non-profit legal organization from which he collected more than $1 million over five years. On its tax filings, the organization indicated a much lesser amount of pay to Moore.[23]
Clinton McGee was my criminal law professor at the University of Alabama School of law. After graduating from that law school, McGee joined the US Army and was sent to Germany to defend Nazis during the Nuremberg Trials.He was so good at defending Nazis that he was shifted to prosecuting them and they didn’t get off.
Some years after I graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law, Roy Moore enrolled there. Professor McGee nick-named Moore, “Fruitcake”.
During my last semester in law school, my infant son died of sudden infant death syndrome, I was disheveled, unable to think clearly. Professor MeGee told me the law clerk of a US District Judge in Birmingham had quit in the middle of his term with the judge, and I might wish to contact that judge about being his law clerk.
I wrote the judge a letter. He replied, inviting me to come see him. I drove from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham and we met in his chambers and mostly we talked about ourselves and hunting and fishing. He offered me the job. I memorialized him in the first chapter of A Few Remarkable Alabama People I Have Known, “He used to drink moonshine.”
Judge W. Clarence W. Allgood also cussed and did not attend church, and was the most Godly man I ever knew. His graveside service at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham was attended my more people than I ever saw at a graveside service.
A Few Remarkable People I Have Known is a free read at the internet library, archive.org, which is run by American colleges. Here’s a link to the free read.
https://archive.org/details/a-few-remarkable-alabama-people-i-have-known_202210
It also can be read at this link:
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
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