Back to Law and Politics
There's been a lot of commentary on Judge Moore's refusal to remove an absurdly heavy monument to the ten commandments from his courtroom (one convenient source is at the Yin Blog, but I think my entire blogroll has said something about it). I feel obliged to comment about it, since I'm a former resident of the great state of Alabama.
And all I'll say is that it's nuts like this who make Alabama the crazy and wonderful place that it is to live. I mean, we can get all bent out of shape about whether he's following the law, violating the Constitution, and all the other matters of great import. Or we can say, more reasonably, "This is Alabama. What do you expect?"
I mean, this is the state that's left a (patently unconstitutional) law on the books banning sex toys. It's a state in which the matter in controversy is a monument to the ten commandments weighing more than all the cars I've ever owned put together. I reserve a little soft spot in my heart for the place, if only because it gave me a good education whilst surrounding me with the quixotic, if not Chestertonian, company of people convinced they were doing right in the strangest of ways.