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Vanderbilt Law Review

Authors

Kathryn E. Komp

First Page

301

Abstract

In the summer of 2004, the group American Veterans Standing for God and Country ("American Veterans") began a cross-country pilgrimage to carry a 5,200-pound statue of the Ten Commandments to Washington D.C. The infamous statue cost Roy Moore his job as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court when he refused to remove it from the lobby of the state courthouse in 2002. American Veterans took up Moore's cause, however, and in October they brought the Commandments statue to a Christian rally in Washington, D.C. The group then planned to ask Congress to display the statue permanently in the Capitol Building. The president of American Veterans also joined Moore in a campaign to enact legislation that would prohibit the Supreme Court from reviewing cases involving any government official's "acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government." As Moore explained in his recent book, "elected and appointed government officials have the right and obligation to acknowledge God as the foundation of American government."

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