‘You Should Recognize the Sovereignty of God.’ Roy Moore on How the Constitution Is Based on God
EDITORIAL: For those who think we are “crackpots” for thinking that God is the only sovereign, here is a former Alabama Supreme Court Justice turned politician who agrees with us.
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‘You Should Recognize the Sovereignty of God.’ Roy Moore on How the Constitution Is Based on God
U.S. Senate in Alabama, Roy Moore, speaks at a campaign rally on September 25, 2017 in Fairhope, Alabama.
Senate candidate Roy Moore believes in the “sovereignty of God,” an idea that he believes certain rules, laws and even Supreme Court opinions have run afoul of.
In an interview with TIME magazine, the Alabama Republican said that he thinks judges who rule in favor of gay marriage should be removed from the bench, argued that it was “providence” that he won the primary against incumbent Sen. Luther Strange and said he often tells his critics that they need to think about biblical principles.
“I talk to liberals, and I tell them this,” he said. “I say, ‘you should be recognizing the sovereignty of God.’ That’s what gives you the right to believe what you want. That’s in the first four Commandments.”
Moore, who was removed from his post as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for refusing to remove a monument to the 10 Commandments he’d installed in the state courthouse and for ordering state judges not to issue same-sex marriage certificates, also said that he thinks NFL players who protest the national anthem are breaking the law.
Here’s a transcript of portions of a two-hour conversation with Moore held on Oct. 16, which began at his campaign headquarters in downtown Montgomery and ended at his office at the Christian action group he founded in 2004.
The transcript below has been edited for clarity and brevity.
How you doing today, Judge Moore?
I’m amazed at politics.
Tell me why, Judge Moore. You saw the President’s remarks this morning that you’re meeting him next week?
Well, it’s the first I’m hearing about it. But let’s go.
You said you’re amazed by politics.
It’s just fascinating.
Well, do you enjoy it?
No. I’m shocked by it. I’m shocked by how corrupt it is. The higher up you go, the more corrupt it is. What they’re doing to me and my family is unforgivable. I just caught ‘em.
Can I ask who ‘they’ is?
Who I’m running against. First the Republicans, now the Democrats. They’re coming against my son. They got a big spread [about his arrest on charges of criminal tresspass] in the paper today. It all resulted from a little hunting incident. Little. Miniature. He came home, wanted to go hunting, and he didn’t have a license. But he went up on my mountain and saw a [hunting] feeder that was on another person’s land.
It sounds like you’re ready for this race to be over.
Very much.
Well, thanks for the taking the time. Let’s start from the beginning. You’ve made it clear that you think the moral foundation of the U.S. Constitution is Biblical. You’ve been reinforcing this point since you were appointed judge in Alabama 25 years ago.
I’d prayed not to get appointed unless it was God’s will. That’s the way I saw it. It was shocking.
So I got to my courtroom. The previous judge had taken everything of value. I had to start decorating. I figured I’d decorate it with a big picture of Washington or Jefferson. That’s what I like. But I couldn’t find any. So I pulled out a little plaque of the Ten Commandments that I had made in 1980. They said ‘you can’t do that, they’re gonna jump all over you for that.’ But I had prayed not to get the job unless it was God’s will. Then I got the job, and I said, ‘I can’t acknowledge God’s role in this?’”
Like I’ve done all my life, I started defending myself. I said “why can’t I do this?” I started learning more about the law, and I learned that the Declaration of Independence says we’re “endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.” I didn’t take down the plaque. I continued the prayers before sessions — which they still do today!
Later, I said, “heck, I’m gonna run for the [Alabama] Supreme Court.” I prayed that God would not let me be elected if he did not want me to acknowledge him at the highest level of the state. And I won. And I did that.
What were been your primary objectives? Were you fighting hot-button issues like abortion and same-sex marriage?
Religious liberty across the country. The right to acknowledge God. We’re still writing briefs. People are getting fired for acknowledging God. Abortion and same-sex marriage, yes. Religious liberty is a big topic across the country today.
In 2012 I decided to run for Chief Justice again. My opponent’s campaign was run by Karl Rove. Karl Rove is a very vengeful person. I won. So I’m Chief Justice again, and along comes same-sex marriage. It struck down our Sanctity of Marriage Amendment.
I decided to do something. I issued a memorandum that basically said she had no jurisdiction over the probate judges of our state — which was true! So I stopped same-sex marriage in Alabama. I told this judge she had no authority.
As you see it, is it more about constitutional jurisprudence, or the “correctness” of same sex marriage?
Both. Here’s a federal judge who had no jurisdiction here. You had a federal ruling conflicting with a state ruling. You might say ‘oh, federal overrules state.’ No it doesn’t. It doesn’t. That’s clear constitutional law that everyone’s confused about.
You’ve clearly spent a lot of time thinking about this. Did you feel that your values as a jurist and a Christian were under assault?
I felt American values were under assault unjustly. Four Supreme Court Justices agreed with me: Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts. Theirs wasn’t just a dissent — it was a blistering dissent. Justice Roberts said that it was completely unconstitutional. Justice Scalia said it was a judicial putsch — a sudden, violent seizure of the government.
And you decided to run for Senate to continue this fight.
This race was unique. $30 million, according to MSNBC, was put in this race against me. We had about $2 million. McConnell, the Senate Leadership Fund — they all came down. I was blistered with adverse advertisements against my wife and family. And we won.
It was such a monumental win that I recognized it was God’s providence that we won. It’s inexplicable in modern terms. That’s why we’ve got such consternation in Washington over ‘what does this mean?’ Well, in my opinion, it means we’re waking up the country to the United States Constitution and the relevance of God. That’s not a religious position. If we don’t understand that our rights come from God, then the government will take them from you.
What’s the most misunderstood thing about your candidacy?
That it’s about religion. It’s not religious at all. God is not religion. I believe in the sovereignty of God. It’s stated clearly in our law, clearly in our history, and clearly in our faith. It’s not anything I’m making up.
So you believe fundamentally that our Constitutional rights are God-given and scriptural in their context. When you’re a Senator, how is that going to manifest itself in your legislative fights? What are the issues you’re going to fight for?
Well, if rights are given by God, then they can’t be taken away from us. That makes Obergefell an illegitimate opinion, because it does that. Our rights are given by God.
In other words, you want to see if you can get rid of same-sex marriage.
Well… you ask me how it would affect my ruling. Justices who put themselves above the Constitution they’re sworn to uphold? They should be impeached and removed. There you go. “The Senate removes…”
How else? Well, the 60-vote rule. You ever heard of that? Well, there are only ten instances in the Constitution where there’s a supermajority rule. Basically, I’m saying that all the rules in the Constitution are majority rule. If you have 50 [Senators], that’s 51. Simple majority is everything above 51. The 60-vote rule is not in this Constitution. That makes it unconstitutional.
I want to strongly oppose the 60-vote rule. It’s a man-made thing that gets in and prevents vote on legislation. If the people down here make me Senator, they want me to rule on these things. I can’t rule on them under the current Senate rules. It relates to God because the Constitution was meant to restrain this sort of power.
When you come to Washington, your views will make you something of an outsider. But often, folks come to Washington pledging to “drain the swamp,” then they enter the swamp and become “creatures of the swamp,” so to speak. How are you confident that you can maintain your own values once you’re in Washington?
I’d lose my job. I don’t want to lose my job. You can lose your job by the people back home when they say you’re out of touch. That’s the right of the people. You think the people of Alabama don’t understand what I believe now?
Over the last 15 years, there’s been a cultural revolution of sorts that you take issue with. For instance, fifteen years ago, same-sex couples couldn’t get married in a single state; today, they can get married in fifty. Aren’t you pushing against the tide? You talk about returning the country to Biblical values — what would that look like?
If I was successful, it would look like the country we came from.
Which is?
The United States of America. Without the knowledge of God, there is no such thing as the United States of America, because if you take God out of it, then you take out the very values and principles on which it was founded.
Am I pushing against the tide, or are liberals pushing against the tide of history? The tide of history was that this country was far different than any country ever created. We recognized the laws of God as giving us a right to have a country. Thomas Jefferson knew that. James Madison said it.
In 1954, “under God” was put in the Pledge of Allegiance. A lot of people said you couldn’t put God in the Pledge of Allegiance, that it’s interfering with religion. But as Eisenhower said: it should be pointed out that this legislation in no way runs contrary to the First Amendment.