Kirkpatrick backed removal from courthouse of Ten Commandments monument
By Craig M. Kibler, The Layman Online, May 21, 2004
The stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA) joined in legal efforts last fall to force the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building.
Clifton Kirkpatrick, arguing that the monument was “harmful to religious liberty” and a violation of the separation of church and state, filed an amicus curiae brief in the case against Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore that successfully had the monument removed in November.
The notice of Kirkpatrick’s action is included in the Advisory Committee on Litigation’s report to the 216th General Assembly, which will meet in Richmond on June 26-July 3.
At the time of the case, a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll found 77 percent of Americans interviewed disapproved of U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson’s order to remove the monument.
In the wake of the case, which the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear, Moore was removed from office and still faces ethics charges. On April 30, his legal team said they were working on an appeal in the case. In an action that appears contrary to two of the six Great Ends of the Church – the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind and the exhibition of the kingdom of heaven to the world – Kirkpatrick argued in his brief (Glassroth v. Moore; U.S. Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit) that “a display in the Alabama State Judicial Building was unconstitutional under the First Amendment Religious Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution and was harmful to religious liberty.”
“The 11th Circuit Court held that the display did indeed violate the First Amendment dictate that prohibits the Congress from enacting any law respecting the establishment of religion. The court reiterated the U.S. Supreme Court interpretation that the First Amendment prohibits the government from ‘promoting or affiliating itself with any religious doctrine or organization, may not discriminate among persons on the basis of their religious beliefs and practices, may not delegate a governmental power to a religious institution, and may not involve itself too deeply in such an institution’s affairs.”
A year ago, The Layman Online reported that Kirkpatrick – arguing “freedom of religion” – had joined a lawsuit by an obscure Brazilian-based religious sect that sought to prevent the United States government from prohibiting the sect from using a hallucinogenic tea in their ceremonies that worship spirits in plants and animals and encourages ritualistic vomiting. The rituals have nothing to do with Christianity or any other traditional faith group.
That case, which is under appeal, prompted an overture to the 215th General Assembly that sought to require the review of Kirkpatrick’s authority to sign amicus curiae briefs in support of various judicial views. That overture was defeated.
A case involving the public display of the Ten Commandments is “harmful to religious liberty,” according to Kirkpatrick, while a case involving the ingestion of hallucinatory drugs in the practice of rituals that have nothing to do with Christianity is about the “freedom of religion.”
In arguing for the separation of church and state in the Ten Commandments case, Kirkpatrick overlooked the fact that the majority of the framers of the Bill of Rights regarded Biblical truth and American public philosophy as inseparable. What they sought in the First Amendment was not the separation of church and state, but the independence of church and state.
He also disregarded the viewpoint of Dr. Lloyd J. Ogilvie, a Presbyterian and the former chaplain of the U.S. Senate. In a 2000 interview with The Layman, Ogilvie said that America is “a nation under God. I feel very strongly that we have a vital spiritual heritage. There may be a separation between church and state, but there is no separation between God and state.”
As for the Great Ends of the Church, Kirkpatrick wrote in the March 1998 issue of The Layman that:
“It is no accident that the call to proclaim the gospel for the salvation of all people is listed as the first great end. This is the heart of every Christian’s vocation. Contrary to the Roman ‘mystery religions’ in the time of Christ, the teaching of the apostles was not hoarded away as a treasury of solemn secrets intended for the few. Just as Christians have received the good news, we are called and sent out in joy to share the gospel with friends, neighbors and, indeed, the whole world.”
In addition to the exhibition of the kingdom of heaven to the world, that’s what Moore and his supporters contended. Moore told CNN that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of the U.S. legal system and that forbidding the acknowledgment of the Judeo-Christian God violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion – which is what Kirkpatrick argued that any restrictions on the Brazilian-based religious sect would do.