Ala. Judge Wears Ten Commandments on Robe
A judge refused to delay a trial Tuesday when an attorney objected to his wearing a judicial robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered on the front in gold.
McKathan told The Associated Press that he believes the Ten Commandments represent the truth “and you can’t divorce the law from the truth. … The Ten Commandments can help a judge know the difference between right and wrong.”
Moore said Tuesday he supports McKathan’s decision to wear the Ten Commandments robe.
Looks like its Ten Commandments Part II. I wonder why the religious conservatives do not call these judges “activists.” It seems interpreting the constitution and law in a way that adapts to society’s needs is activist, but actively doing something in contravention of the law and abusing one’s position is fine by the fundamentalists.
Just stopping in to say hello and to congratulate you on your recent nomination at the BoB Weblog Awards 2004.
http://www.blogmechanics.com/bob
I’m just speechless. How on earth can this man ever be taken as an unbiased judge ever again?
I’m just stumped. I’m trying to figure out how a belief in God or a lack of belief for that matter would preclude or enhance one’s impartiality during a civil or criminal matter and I got nothing.
Regards,
This looks like a good place for a partial re-post…
Only blind sheep would submit to such tyranny.
I hope this judge doesn’t come and stone me for working on Sunday!
You rock, Spocko.
BTW, congrats, Les!
Thanks shana,
Congrats, here too, Les!
Pop Tarts, you say “activist” like it’s a bad thing.
Oh. Wait. You’re using it like some of the conservatives, who are bound and determined to turn “activist” into a dirty word. Never mind that Jesus (whether it was one single person or a group of persons) was a social and political activist. Never mind that the word “idiot” originated from “one who is not involved in their government”.
I love Canada, and want to live there someday relatively soon…but I’m not emigrating until the religious extremists have been checked. I’m not just leaving the country and letting them have it! Every time something like this happens, I’ve got to push things back another month…
Is it just me or when the site went down due to “Bandwidth Exceeded” did we lose an article. I could swear there was something else here.
I love this:
followed immediately by:
6. You shall not kill.
Man, there is a LOT of killing in the Bible. Who said that people all ran around killing each other before God came along and told them to stop??
GM- Yes, I love the OT too- it’s more fun than shooting monkeys in a barrel…
The people found guilty must be loving it. Grounds for appeal I can’t get a fair trial. The judge wants to put me to death. he’s not following the laws of the U.S. he follows “Gods Law” never pay alimony again my wife was unfaithful “put her to death”. I hope every case he presides over is appealed.
This lunatic Judge like Roy Moore should without question be disbarred, disrobed, defrocked, lubed up and thrown into the nearest jail where no doubt several “Sinners” have been committed by his hand.
Every single case this nutjob and Roy Moore has ever presided over should be given consideration of retrial.
They all also should be given a basic high school education as to where the Laws of this land come from which has ZERO to do with any Ten Commandments.
They come from “The Two Treatises of Government” and Roman Senate.
While they are at it they might also want to explain to these nutjobs that the ten Commandments dont come from some god either, they come entirely from Ancient Kemet.
“The 42 Admonitions of Ma’at”
http://anu-world.com/id9.html
Nunya,
Moore was disbarred. However, none of the cases Moore presided over nor any of this judge’s cases are in any danger of being overturned on the grounds of bias. The standard is much higher. See Scalia’s Memorandum issued last year on the request that he recuse himself from the Cheney case.
Regards,
Someone whom is this screwed up in the head has no business judging another human being period.
You can not sit there and honestly tell me someone like this will not let their religious convictions bias their decision and lead to rulings based on “Faith” and not factual evidence. This man is delusional.
If he were wearing Hammurabi’s code would people be freaking out as much? Perhaps if wore the Ten Commandments in a tasteful shade of periwinkle (which looks good with black) it would have gone over much better. It’s all about the psychology of color. It’s probably the first two commandments that freak people out the most.
Quick point of clarification. The sixth commandment is actually you shall not murder.
The specific hebrew word referenced in that commandment is rarely used in the old testament in comparison to all the other forms of killing and slaughter most of you are referencing. Here is a list of the other contexts it may be found in with the english equivalent in bold.
I think there is a difference between killing and murdering, but I’m not posting to start a debate on the ten commandments.
An interesting thought I have is what is the extent judges and politicians should be allowed to flex their own right to free speech? They are citizens as well not just property of the government. I don’t approve of the judge’s decision to do that, but it seems to me he is expressing freedom of speech. What if he had the ten commandments tattooed on his hands or arms? Should he be punished for tattoos?
If there is the appearance of government supporting one particular brand of religion then yes folks should freak out and freak out loud.
yawn
Not on my dime. When they are not being paid by my tax dollars they can do whatever they want. While they are working they should appear completely neutral to all notion of religion.
Is fairness such a difficult concept to comprehend?!
What if your Judge walked in the court wearing tinfoil hat with “The Call to Prayers” nicely embroidered in gold on his rob, which you hear from mineret across the M.E everyday?
They translate to:
Allah is great, Allah is great
I bear witness there is no deity but Allah
I bear witness that Muhammad (pbuh) is the Messenger of Allah
Hurry to the prayer
Hurry to the success
Prayer is in order
Prayer is in order
Allah is great, Allah is great
There is no deity but Allah
Spocko do you agree there is a difference between killing and murdering? Your entire sixth point of your lovely long post has been proven out of context. I could probably do similar with the other nine points, but that post has me bushed.
No, THEO, I do not think there is a difference.
If I kill you or if I murder you (or if I kill your dog for that matter) your precious god says I must be killed right back.
And since you are missing the original point of my post (you seem to be purposefully obtuse) I’ll restate it…
Your pathetic excuse for a god commands death for both sincerely sinister deeds as well as the most petty of trivial “offenses”. Luckily, our law is not based on this shit.
If the punishment for killing/murdering is something other than death then perhaps my selection could be considered “out of context”. So tell me what do you think the punishment for killing is? If you have another list of “quotes” from the Bible that explain this “commandment” then cough them up – they will only support my point anyway. This was the worst example you could have selected – not many people feel all that bad about killing killers (or muderers).
How could anyone feel comfortable standing before a fool judge who believes in this nonsense? I guess only that minority of Americans who believe the same way he does.
I wonder which version of the commandments this fool plastered on his robe?
Of course, talk about a set of “Ten Commandments” is insane anyway. There are no “Ten Commandments”. There are shitloads of commands in this nonsensical collection of scrawlings known as the “Bible” but to come up with the magical number of 10 takes a bit of finangling.
Sure, there is a list of dos and don’ts in Exodus 20 but the only way you can derive 10 out of this list is to ignore some rules and group others together. Bunk, I say. Then you have the Jews, the Protestants, and the Catholics incapable of agreeing what the 10 are exactly; each group lists them differently. The Jews start with “I am the lord thy god” (Exod 20:2) but the xtians skip that and go to “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exod 20:3). The Catholics skip the graven images jive. Bogus! And what about after the alleged “10”? Just a few verses later you’ll find “An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee” (Exod 20:24). What the hell, this looks like another commandment to me. I guess we can just blow off this one. Tell me Theo – you keeping up your burnt offerings? How ‘bout all the goodies in Exodus 13 or 23; “You shall not favor a poor man in his lawsuit” (23:3) sounds like another fucking commandment here.
To top all this crap, once you reach Exodus 34 you get a set of “replacement” commandments because this Moses guy (another Sun story here; not a real person) goes and breaks the first set of stone tablets. Doh, oops, sorry. Hey god, can you whip up another batch of them thar commandment thingies? And god, being a good secretary, says unto Moses, “Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.” (Exod 34:1). But god was not a good secretary at all and came up with a completely different set of commandments after just stating that they would be the same. Fickle fucker!
The second “identical” set of commandments goes like this…
What the hell. This guy must have Alzheimer’s er somethin’! Can’t keep his own list of rules straight. What a maroon!
If the “Ten Commandments” are so important then why can’t they be listed simply and consistently without the slightest chance of confusion?
Care for some more “commandments”…
What a load of tripe!
Only a fool would consider any of this shit as the “word of god”. Where are the commandments against slavery, child abuse, rape, torture, spousal abuse, dictatorship, facism, republicanism? How about a commandment to love and have compassion for others no matter whose naughty bits they twiddle?
The concept of the “Ten Commandments” is nothing more than another tool of propaganda used to control “the sheep”.
Baa baa…
Spocko, you trying to tell us something????
If you mean – am I disgusted with your book of homophobia – then yes I’m saying something there.
PS. Mrs Spocko feels the same as I.
More than likely the attorney who had issue with the judge probably has a guilty client and no way to bail their butt out so was grasping at any straw to get the case bumped to another time. Stall tactic.
Or the lawyer really is disgusted by a judge thumbing his nose at the rulings of the higher courts. The Alabama State Supreme Count ruled that a monument displaying the ten commandments in the entryway of a state courthouse was an inappropriate religious display. What do you think they will say about a judge literally wrapping himself in the ten commandments? This isn’t an issue of freedom of expression, because while the judge is presiding in the courtroom he is an extension of the government and, like a school teacher, is prevented from proselytizing, even non-verbally.
It only becomes interesting, if the robe is personal property, and was purchased by him or given to him, rather than being purchased by the state. If the judge is smart, a group of kids that he coached little league for will have purchased the robe, and his wife will have painstakingly hand embroidered it for months, and then had the kids give it to him as a birthday present. The dollar value is low, sentimental value is high, and you get little kids and the wife that made them milk and cookies on the record on his behalf. What a wonderful fact pattern that would be.
Regards,
Spocko, and Mrs Spocko too- hear, hear. These laws are obviously intended to overawe, threaten, and spook a superstitious folk into toeing the line. And they worked- look how long Judaism and Christianty have survived. Consciously and/or unconsciously derived, the laws that evolve under the mantle of religion are those that successfully keep the religion going, one way or another.
Doesn’t mean we should regard them as anything other than interesting cultural relicts, much less as the Word of God. It’s incredible that we still have wackos who believe them in this day and age. Worse, we have people who violate their public trust by trying to promulgate these violent superstitions in the courts and the schools, in violation of the law.
I’m not worried about this nimrod is in Alabama. This is the wonderful state—right next to the one I live in—whose citizens voted to keep thier state income taxes at disportionally high rates so the few wealthy interests would’nt be too duly overtaxed. These people would vote for a rutabaga if it said it was a Christian and had the 10 commandents tattoed on it ass( or what passes for a ass on a rutabaga). Alabama is hardly a trendsetter state. If it has become one then we had all better start worrying.
Technically the sabbath is the last day of the week, the day God was finished with creation. That would be Saturday, as the week runs Sunday to Saturday, not Monday to Sunday. So there would probably be a whole lot of stoning going on.
A question of semantics. If satan does exist then he would be laughing his ass off at all the Christians who think they know when killing is right or wrong.
I feel sorry for the people out there who need the bible to guide their lives, but only insofar as it upholds the values and beliefs they already have.
It is amazing the nukber of inconsistencies that exist from New to Old Testament, and how Christians would have us believe they are really the same book. I believe right in the beatitudes Jesus makes a statement about how people have been living their lives inapropriately by following the code of the old testament and then he calls on them to follow the beatitudes. It is amazing how people can call themselves Christians (followers of Christ) when in reality they reject his own beliefs.
I completely missed this among all the other hubabaloo in this thread. Thanks! I didn’t realize I’d been nominated until I noticed a spike in traffic from the BoB site. I would’ve thought I was too big to participate, but I appreciate the nod just the same.
OK, I’ll stop dragging the thread off-topic now.
Les- go ahead, drag all you like- it’s your site. Abuse your power. Harp on and on and on about something that has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic- see if we care.
Uh, what were we talking about, anyways?
This is not relevant to the argument. It doesn’t matter if his robes are made from the Shroud of Turin and were embroidered by the Virgin Mary herself. While he is sitting on the bench he is acting as an agent of the government. As an agent of the government he is not allowed to proselytize. If he is required to purchase the robes for his job, he can deduct the purchase from his taxes as a job related expense.
Again it would be irrelevant. If he wants to wear this robe around his house, more power to him. It does not belong in a courtroom and I await the inevitable decision from the higher court on this issue.
Hmmm. Since the Shroud of Turin was most likely created in the 14th century,
http://www.csicop.org/articles/shroud/index2.html
that would mean that Mary was alive then too, thus surpassing Methuselah as the longevity champ! Maybe she’s still alive!
Not all religious expression is proselytization. A person does not, when acting as an agent of the state, cease to have rights of his own. Ten commandments adorning state-owned property is clearly wrong. But the man is not state-owned property.
I for one am just as glad to have his prejudices out in the open. It’s best if everyone knows how he feels. Also, many judges have proven capable of rendering verdicts that, while contrary to their own beliefs, are supportable in law.
The embroidered robe gives us a chance to look for personal beliefs embedded in his verdicts.
Sort of like wearing a Scarlet “C” for Christian signifying that yes I am stupid and gullible enough to believe the unbelievable without a shred of evidence so watch me carefully as my decisions can largely be based on faith as Im likely to throw reason & logic right out the window.
To me at least this is without question a solid reason to disbar any Judge as his whole job, his ONLY job is to make decisions based on facts & rule of law while remaining as unbiased as possible.
He has just shown contempt for ALL of the above, faith over facts, biblical dogma over constitutional law, & obviously Bias based on religious delusions.
I have to admit that your militancy surprises me at times, Nunya. While I do feel this fellow’s robes are crossing the line, I still feel his fitness as a judge should be based on his record and not presumptions on how much he’s bought into a particular religious viewpoint. Given some of his statements there’s definitely reason to be concerned, but the fact that he parades around in his TC robe alone is no basis to disbar him.
Les,
That’s true, but the fact that he wore the 10 commandments on his robe demonstrates some lack of judgment. He should have been aware that doing something like that would lead to some conflict. If he didn’t it demonstrates a lack of foresight and consideration. If he did realize that there would be a public outcry but wore the robes anyways it demonstrates that he’s a jerk. I think that a lack of judgment and a excess of general jerkiness are both qualities that aren’t conducive to being a good judge.
Certainly is to me, shows zero respect for his position, zero respect for the law.
Also any Judge that even remotely shows signs of being like a Roy Moore clone needs to be disbarred immediately, CYA git tha fuck out and dont let the bible hit you in the ass.
Little More information on this nutcase.
http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/110310570714540.xml
This Judge obviously has no understanding of factual reality, he is clearly delusional and has no business whatsoever being responsible for life or death judgements.
When a person is placed in a position of authority, whether it be a school teacher, judge, a police officer, etc… the rights of that person, when they are acting as an arm of the government, must be balanced against the rights of those they wield authority over. Defendents are like school children, neither can choose who they stand before, and both are required by law to appear before them. They are powerless in those environments, so *every* effort must be made to make sure that the authority figure doesn’t abuse their power. I have no objection to anyone wearing a small cross or other symbol of their faith, but I strongly object to a judge’s robes bearing the ten commandments. I would also object to a school teacher wearing a shawl with “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger” embroidered on it, or a police officer wearing a button that states “God is Dead”. I don’t think that it is too much to ask for these government agents make every effort to appear unbiased while working.