Talk:Roy Moore

Judge Roy Moore

How is it possible that this hideous example of humankind was actually appointed to the position of Chief Justice? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.69.3.20 (talk) 11:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The fact is that Roy Moore is a terrible example of the humankind that can't get its (publicly and popularly advertised) facts straight. Apparently, the above commentator failed to recognize that the people of Alabama elected Judge Moore. He also failed to realize that that fact is available in the article. In addition, Judge Moore is also a poor example of one who launches Ad Hominem attacks. ElderHap (talk) 17:44, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

See the bottom of the page for Judge Moore's bid for the office of Alabama's Governor. ElderHap (talk) 18:25, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Contempt of Court?

I'm not sure if technically he was in comtempt of court -- the sqanction wasn't issued by teh ruling US Districty Court, but by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. orthogonal 19:32, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

As I understand it, he was in contempt of court once the time limit for compying the court order to remove the monument expired. However, he wasn't removed specifically for that reason - I'll review the article and adjust as necessary to make clear the distinction between his contempt and the Court of the Judiciary decision. Google definition is "A act of defiance of court authority or dignity. Contempt of court can be direct (swearing at a judge or violence against a court officer) or constructive (disobeying a court order). The punishment for contempt is a fine or a brief stay in jail (i.e. overnight)". In the case of the judge, he made it clear that he'd continue to act in that way, so some way to prevent continual recurrances was needed. Jamesday 04:38, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Excuse me, but isn't "As a legal matter, this case is one of the most significant examples of the period of why there is separation of church and state, a principle which, in part is a reflection of the religious persecution by the majority which cause the Pilgrim Fathers to leave England for the Americas. It has a judge who was found to have violated separation, ran for office in a state with a large majority of his religion, on a platform that he would continue to do so, then proceeded to do so when in office. Finally, the judicial system and its controls removed the head judge of a state from office to preserve the separation, in the face of the inevitable disagreement of the majority of the general population of the state, for the fundamental purpose of the separation is to prevent the majority from infringing the rights of the minorities." a bit non-NPOV? It's worded so ambiguously that I can't tell whether it's in favour or against the action taken against Moore, but regardless, it's too verbose, and possibly POV. --Johnleemk 12:51, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like an essay that I would write for school.. and isn't NPOV "non-point of view", meaning that non-NPOV = POV? :-) ugen64 01:52, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Actually NPOV is "neutral point of view", not "non point of view". But anyway, I also feel that that paragraph is very POV, I can't see anything that looks like an actual fact in it rather than opion. Saul Taylor 02:42, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If you, me, or most other people acted like Roy Moore did we'd probably be facing jail time for contempt of court and violating a court order. Moore was very lucky that the only thing that happened was for him to loose his job.

JesseG 02:15, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

removing phrase "so-called"

Without objection, I think we should remove the "so-called" in front of the phrase "separation of church and state." That there is a legal and philosophical position called "separation of church and state" I don't think can be legitimately disputed, and the use of offending words is not neutral. ~~ adoarns 14:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Please excuse my tardiness. I object to the removal. I agree that the existence of such a position cannot be legitimately disputed, but I must recognize that the legitimacy of the same may absolutely be disputed. Further, I suggest that the use of the phrase, "separation of church and state," can impute POV to a proposition. For this reason, I suggest that the words, "so-called" should precede the phrase, "separation of church and state." I suggest this because the prefix only communicates the hypothetical nature of the doctrine. The fact that jurists are empowered to create such a doctrine adds no more credibility to it than telling a lie three times adds credibility to the lie. If I were to refer to a person as a "so-called" person, then that would be offensive to the person. This would be unacceptable. If I were to refer to "so-called" Christianity of America, then that would only communicate the existence of evidence that supports a contrary proposition: that America is not a Christian nation. This is not non-neutral per se. For this reason, a reference to "so-called" separation of church and state is not non-neutral per se. The reference only communicates the existence of a position contrary to a disputed doctrine.

Moreover, referring to the doctrine as a "so-called" doctrine communicates the absolute existence of evidence of logical fallacies within the doctrine. Again, communicating the existence of such fallacies is not POV; it is informative. As such, it has its proper place in an encyclopedia. ElderHap (talk) 18:15, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Iilliterate guy with the school bus

This admittedly made me laugh, but it is quite POV. I'm taking it out. --Saucy Intruder 2 July 2005 17:18 (UTC)

The bus

I've seen this bus and a news article about it. He's quite sincere, and has added more praise of Moore to it, this time getting the name spelled right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.214.106.170 (talk)

POV

There is a section that appears to try to enter the mind of Judge Moore to explain why he made a particular statement on a talk show. The authors should not presume to read the mind of Judge Moore, rather the facts should speak for themselves.

I thought that uppercasing all letters in GOD (rather than a proper noun "God") was a POV, but it turns out that the court records do the same, so it's an accurate reflection of the public record. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sciguy.com (talk • contribs)

Please sign your name!

Howdy,

I'd appreciate it if those who created the sections "removing phrase "so-called"", "The bus", and "POV" would sign with their username (just add four ~tildes~ after what you've written).

If you don't have a username yet, you can get one for free here - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&type=signup.

Remember, Be bold in updating pages, and welcome!

--EChronicle 16:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

• I decided to be bold in looking at the page history. --Dystopos 16:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to all! --EChronicle 19:50, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

The link for the first reference is dead. Lizz612 23:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Political Bias in this Entry

"Articles should be written from a neutral point of view, representing all views on a subject, factually and objectively, in an order which is agreeable to a common consensus."

Despite the disclaimer on the Discussion section that Moore is a candidate for Governor and is therefore subject to bias, there is no justification for publishing incorrect information about him on this entry.

1) Moore has no interest in enforcing into law the ideals of the Southern Baptist - merely the law of God. He recognizes that the law of God is what should dictate our laws, and this is all he is saying.

2) When Moore was removed from office, it was not because he was violating a court order; it was because he told Bill Pryor in cross-examination that he would continue to acknowledge God if he remained as Chief Justice. There was a convenient justification from a PR standpoint to explain his removal away as a defiance of court order, but in reality, this was not the basis at all. The argument was actually conceded by the prosecuting in the first hearing, the Chief Justice has the right to decorate the building as he sees fit.

What was the basis for the decision? According to presiding Judge Myron Thompson, it was because "Moore violates the first amendment to the US Constitution by ackowledging God in the court room..." Moore's defense is that he did not violate the first amdentment, because:

a) He is not congress
b) Acknowledging God is not a law set in motion by congress
c) Acknowledging God is not an establishment of religion

Interesting to note that Thompson never allowed a definition of religion to be presented, despite Moore's demand that he do so.

3) Moore is admired by many. He has over 3,000 volunteers serving his grassroots campaign, and Riley does not have a campaign
4) Separation of Church and State is the popular law he broke...I will concede this if you can show it in the Constitution. I can, and would be happy to, show you where in the Alabama Constitution the Justice and Chief Justice is obligated to acknowledge God. He placed each hand on a Bible when he swore into office as Chief Justice, to uphold the Constitution of Alabama above all...even if it meant violating a court order (which is not a law).

These are the facts of the "Ten Commandments case", and this is how I have presented it. Your entries are nothing more than un-supported theories and popular belief that Moore broke the law, but I have shown how he lawfully upheld the Constitution. I will continue to re-edit this page as many times a day as necessary, to state the facts in a proven and un-biased manner.

(Unrelated note): The {{activepol}} tag is meant to alert people that there may be bias, not to excuse it.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by EagleAP (talk • contribs) 26 May 2006

"Moral basis of law"

I suggest that the lines on the "moral basis of law" in the Aftermath subsection be removed, rewritten, and/or moved to another article (perhaps on that subject). The passage IMO is needlessly wordy and isn't too subtle with POV, either. Since the term is redlinked, I suggest that a variation of these lines be inserted as an article for that topic to solve that problem, and then perhaps one sentence referring to the principle could be left in this section. (That's really a compromise position; my inclination would be to just remove it. The topic apparently hasn't been noted enough for an article to already exist, and this article would be better off without the POV issue.) HumbleGod 04:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Went ahead and removed the POV paragraph. Also rearranged some of the other paragraphs here--the Aftermath subsection had grown to include miscellaneous information about his political career that wasn't directly related to the Ten Commandments case. Moved those and the candidacy for governor to a new Political life outside the judiciary section. Also created a page Judge Roy Moore that redirects here, since Moore is well known by that title in the state of AL (and in fact campaigned as "Judge Roy Moore for Governor"). HumbleGod 06:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

"Moral basis of law" redux (POV, Content, Not verified)

The section in question was added again recently. I have taken the liberty of removing it for the following reasons:

1. It's placement in the section Political life outside the judiciary was problematic, if not altogether improper.
2. The text in question was abstract from Roy Moore's life and, if anything, deserves an article of its own rather than a digression in this one.
3. The text is, in my opinion, highly POV. The ideas that "the moral nature of law [as described in this section] is inherent" in the Declaration, that the "necessity of a rule of law originating in the authority of God is an unquestionably distinctive 18th century judicial tenet", and that this subject was "so clearly established as bedrock, early American precedent" are far from "unquestionable," and are indeed open to rigorous debate among historians of both political and the judicial schools of thought.

My suggestion for proponents of this idea's inclusion, as stated in earlier comments, is that a sentence be devoted to the "moral basis of law" in sections relating to the federal lawsuit here, linking to a new article being devoted specifically to the concept of the "moral basis of law." I think that the article will be better-developed and better-understood if the entire WP community has access to it as its own concept, rather than as a footnote in this article. This will also hopefully avoid the inclusion of POV text in this article, leaving the risks of POV to be limited to the article on the subject itself. -- H·G (^words/_works) 19:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

• I did some further research to see if the term "moral basis of law" is a widely-understood political or judicial concept or philosophy. Judging from Google searches, it is apparently not--a search for "'moral basis of law' God" yielded exactly 37 unique hits, several of which referred to other topics and none of which were articles or papers specifically focused on that topic. The closest I came was a quote from former Supreme Court justice Warren Burger, whose invocation of the term was not synonymous with its description in this article and which must be considered a different concept in the context of Burger's rulings. Therefore, not only do I feel that its inclusion in this article is not warranted, I feel that unless further relevant sources can be found, it will never survive as either an article or a section in an article without violating WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:RS. -- H·G (^words/_works) 20:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
• I have left messages on the talk page of User:Donahue, who has made the above changes, to discuss their appropriateness and relevance here. Instead, he has chosen to re-add these sections without discussing them. In the interest of avoiding an edit war, I have added several templates to note my disputes listed above. I hate to be carrying on a one-sided conversation on this topic, but when one editor makes changes rather than addressing them in Discussion pages, I see no alternative. I strongly encourage other editors to review the section in question and discuss it here. -- H·G (^words/_works) 22:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Clearly the passages you indicate are written with a non-neutral POV. These opinions need to either be attributed to a notable source relevant to the biography or removed. --Dystopos 23:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

While a few sources were provided for the section in question, none were relevant to its application to this particular subject. (The sources were texts of speeches by George Washington and Patrick Henry; however, none sources were provided to show their relevance to this subject. Nor were any verifiable sources provided in regards to "moral basis of law" and how it applies to Roy Moore.) Thus, I have removed them. -- H·G (^words/_works) 07:03, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

• Since General Washington and Patrick Henry aren't around to comment on Moore's legal theories, citing them to support a POV about Moore is original research. Donahue continues to replace his deleted essay and I continue to remove it. --Dystopos 15:48, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Saw combat?

The current version of the article notes that Moore "saw combat" in Vietnam. However, the two web references that mention it[1][2] note that he was a company commander of MPs in Vietnam, guarding a stockade in Da Nang, but don't clarify whether Moore was actually involved in combat. I don't have a copy of his autobiography; does anyone with that book know if it mentions anything about whether Moore was actually involved in combat? -- H·G (^words/_works) 03:19, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Good article?

I'd like to see this article eventually improved to Good Article status. Thus I think this might be a good place for listing improvements that could be made to the article to bring it to that point. Here are a couple off the top of my head:

1. The article could use a good GFDL-compliant picture of "Roy's Rock," the Ten Commandments monument Moore is known for. The monument is such a significant part of Moore's notability that this article suffers by not having a picture of it.
2. On that note, maybe we could use some more details about the monument itself? The monument is known for being quite well-sculpted, ornate, and (by some accounts) awe-inspiring. A good paragraph describing the monument's features in some detail couldn't hurt.
3. Cleanup of Judicial career. Moore's tenure as state Chief Justice was not without controversy aside from the monument issue. Right now the first portion of this section only lists two sentences, one from each of his judicial positions (without any transition), and then heads straight into the decalogue controversy. This section could be revised, maybe with an expansion on his tenure as a circuit court judge and an additional subsection on his non-decalogue actions as C.J?
4. The section on the removal of the decalogue monument doesn't mention the sizeable protests that occurred on the streets of Montgomery during the weeks preceding the removal. The Atlantic link discusses this (I think) and may serve as a good reference if this information were added. It should be, as it demonstrates the breadth of his support.
5. The section on Moore's candidacy for governor could probably use some more material. Anything significant in terms of campaign stops, rallying issues? Additionally (and separately), what about Moore's role in derail the proposed anti-school-segregation state amendment in 2004? (Here's an article on that, for starters.)
6. Of course, since we're dealing with a controversial figure, we'll have to find ways to keep the article stable and to reach consensus when making changes. Some recent changes have been made repeatedly by one or more newer users who have thus far ignored any calls for discussion and consensus on this article. This applies to partisans on all sides, but since this particular user is putting in POV statements that are "pro-Moore," I'd note that any attempt to reach consensus increases the article's odds of reaching Good Article status and would thus increase Moore's exposure to people who might not otherwise learn about him.

That's all I can think of for now. Can anyone else think of any improvements that could be made? -- H·G (^words/_works) 05:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

For the last week or so I've been working on an expansion of this article in my user talkspace. Please feel free to check out the draft of this expansion here. If no one objects, I'd like to move the draft to this article in a week's time (8/21). If you do object, or if you have any suggestions, please feel free to mention them here or in my talkspace. (While the draft is in my user talkspace, I ask that you not alter it directly.) -- H·G (^words/_works) 04:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've added the draft. Issues that still need to be resolved:

• The "fruit salad" thing....I'm this close to removing it altogether. I've been able to find the nickname sticking to him in a few Google searches, but nothing to confirm it was assigned to him by a former professor.
• It may be a bit too wordy. I'll leave that for others to judge/alter. -- H·G (^words/_works) 03:49, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Is part of the story missing?

From news accounts, I remember that Moore appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court. The 8 Associate Justices recused themselves because they participated in the decision to overrule Moore and remove the monument. 8 surrogate Justices were then appointed to hear the case. I don't have a source at the moment, but I distinctly remember that happening, since the unusual mass-recusal is what drew me to this case in the first place. VxP 01:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Dominionism

The subject is listed on Template:Dominionism as an advocate of Dominionism, so I have added the template. Tom Harrison ^Talk 12:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

POV in lead graf

Former last sentence of opening paragraph: "For these actions, Moore is seen as a hero by many Americans" (wording may be slightly off, I didn't copy and paste that). Entirely true; I have no objection to noting this in the article, and I'd probably agree that it's important enough to note in the lead. However, while true, this is woefully incomplete to the point of being biased. Many people think he's a hero, but many people also hold the opposite opinion. Thus I edited the sentence to "The controversy around Moore drew national attention and strong opinions on both sides." This seems a more complete descriptions of the vigorous debate about Moore. (The rephrasing wasn't an attempt to sneak the word "hero" out of the sentence, but I wanted a parallel construction and the obvious opposite of hero, "villian", didn't seem right, so I went from scratch.)75.139.32.246 08:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, just noticed the diffs where the "hero" sentence was added a few edits ago. Yeah, that was blatant POV.75.139.32.246 08:19, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Judge Moore's Candidacy in Alabama's 2010 Gubernatorial Election

Judge Roy Moore has announced his bid for the office of Governor of the State of Alabama. If there are no objections, I will (if nobody else does) edit the article to include the pertinent information. ElderHap (talk) 18:23, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Early Life Section Citations?

That's quite a bit of biographical information and there's not a single citation. Thetableist (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC).

Washington's speech

Washington's speech is apparently cited as 'early American precedent.' However, As a matter of basic principle, a speech does not constitute precedent. 'Precedents' are decisions made by courts that interpret the law, in this case constitutional law, and constitute binding authority on that law; Washington, not being a court, could not set legal precedents by his actions.

As no other reference to early American judicial precedent appears in the text, I removed the title of the subheading stating that any such precedent appears, or implying that Washington's "official" acts constitute precedent. [Giving a speech, incidentally, is not an exercise of any legal power under the Constitution; rather it is simply an exercise of Washington's right to express himself freely, much as any citizen might]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.175.172.156 (talk) 09:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: as the sentence stating that Moore saw the speech as 'precedent' seems rather unlikely--Moore is likely to understand what precedent is--I have also removed that sentence. However I have not reviewed his arguments or the court's decision myself; if he really relied on the 'precedent' in question then it would also be necessary to explain what 'precedent' usually means, as it is likely the basis on which the court rejected Moore's argument. I have also noted that Washington's 'official' act was not in any sense authorised by the Constitution, other than as an expression of free speech.