MONTGOMERY, Ala. (BP)–The Ten Commandments monument, which sat in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building for more than two years, was moved out of public view Aug. 27.
Workers lifted the 5,300-pound monument with a dolly and wheeled it into a side hallway and into a back room at approximately 9:05 a.m. Central time. The move, done by a crew from Georgia, took less than two hours — considerably less than the eight hours it took to install it the night of July 31, 2001.
Once the monument was firmly on the dolly, the move to the side hallway took less than a minute.
With the doors locked, more than 100 protesters outside only could watch. For days they had planned on peacefully preventing the monument’s removal — such as by locking arms in front of the main doors.
Federal district Judge Myron Thompson issued an Aug. 20 deadline for its removal, but Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore — who had it installed — refused to obey the court order, saying that by doing so he would be denying his faith and violating the Alabama constitution. But on Aug. 21 his associate justices overruled him and ordered the building’s manager to have the monument removed.
“It is a sad day in our country when the moral foundation of our laws and the acknowledgment of God has to be hidden from public view to appease a federal judge,” Moore said in a statement.
Moore is expected to file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In recent years appeals courts have issued various Ten Commandments rulings that often conflict.
Speaking on FOX News, Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, called on Christians to boycott the Georgia company involved in moving the monument. The company that had installed the monument turned down a request to help in its removal.
Protesters promised to continue demonstrating, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.
“If it takes 75 years to reclaim this land for righteousness, God find us and our children and our children’s children ready,” Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, said in the Advertiser.
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: WHEELING IT AWAY.
