The National Pro-life Religious Council [NPRC], a coalition of diverse groups within the Christian tradition, decries the court ordered removal of the Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the Alabama State Judicial Center, as an act with profoundly troubling implications. It is our conviction that the 11^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in their attempt to enforce a presumed and misconstrued separation of church and state, has succeeded in establishing a separation of morals and society. It is hard to imagine a more dangerous precedent than for a branch of government, which has been given the mandate to uphold the law, to deny the very basis upon which they are vested with the powers they wield.

The force of law is the knowledge that we all must answer to someone for the things that we do, particularly things which are known to be harmful. By what standard, however, are we to decide what is harmful and what is not? Is it the standard established by a small, elite group of people? Human history has no shortage of totalitarian and genocidal regimes that have justified their horrors with self-generated standards. Is it the standard established by will of the majority? Again, history is replete with instances of mob rule.

Of particular concern to the NPRC, is the "Sixth Commandment" found on Judge Moore’s monument: "You shall not murder." With the order to remove the monument, the 11^th Circuit has signaled that the abiding basis for life-protecting legislation exists only in the will of the majority or the whims of tyrants.

What the founders of this country realized, which apparently the judges on the 11^th Circuit have not, is that the laws of the land must conform to a law higher than merely that of which humans can themselves be convinced. There are standards set by "Nature, and Nature’s God" that human government must emulate and strive to uphold. When these high standards are displaced by the standards of judges who think they know better, we are forced to say with St. Paul, "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."

We urge those who serve on our nation’s Courts to protect the public display of the Commandments.

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