This letter is in response to Jason Baker's letter (Forced to forget God, Christianity; 09/02/03) regarding Judge Moore's monument. The pro-monument side often cites the God-fearing nature of the founding fathers as justification for Christian preference in public life. But these same men were the ones who declared, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The argument can be made that the First Amendment does not necessarily provide guidelines for the decoration of state-run buildings. This argument is easily countered. First, the First Amendment has been interpreted as recognizing the separation of church and state. The myth of the Protestant Christian founding fathers has persisted. Jefferson, Franklin, Paine and even Washington were all deists, products of the enlightenment rather than merely the Christian beliefs of the early Americans. To say that America, as a nation-state, was based upon Christianity is misleading.

There are still arguments to be made for the removal of the monument. Obviously, any person charged with a crime who had to appear in court in the building would have to see it, which would provide most non-Judeo-Christians with a hint that they might not receive a fair trial. To clarify, it is not likely that a Christian in Alabama would feel comfortable in the presence of a shrine to tenets of another faith under similar conditions.

There are more legal grounds for the monument's removal, as well. The 14th amendment states, in part: "No state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This equal protection clause adds to the protections of the First Amendment and clarity to the Ninth and 10th. The Ninth states, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The 10th similarly guarantees rights of the citizenry: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

If we assume that the 10th amendment precludes the First and 14th, such that the state maintains the right to include religious shrines inside its court buildings, we then must refer to the constitution of the state of Alabama. Section Three of the document states "that no religion shall be established by law; that no preference shall be given by law to any … mode of worship; that no one shall be compelled by law to attend any place of worship … and that the civil rights, privileges and capacities of any citizen shall not be in any manner affected by his religious principles." Non-Judeo-Christians charged with crimes, summoned for jury duty, or summoned to bear witness are forced to attend what had basically become place of worship for the supporters of the monument. This, as well as other aspects of this section, definitely violates the guaranteed civil rights of the citizens of the state of Alabama.

The building of the U.S. Supreme Court has an engraving of Moses and the Ten Commandments over the columns. But rather than being a religious shrine, the engraving is part of a frieze that includes historical lawgivers such as Hammurabi, Solon and Confucius — it is a monument to the history of law, not religion.