When Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore defied an order from Federal Judge Myron Thompson in 2003, and refused to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building, he was summarily expelled from office under the pretense that America is a nation of laws, not of men.

Moore contended that those laws could not define or promote a healthy and free society if they were established or enforced as the result of arbitrary whims of those in power.  Thus, he asserted that moral and ethical absolutes, as codified in the Ten Commandments, have been and should remain as the basis for American law.

Members of the American Civil Liberties Union, aided and abetted by their toadies in the media, were quick to warn our society of the dangers it faced if Moore’s insolence was allowed to go uncontested. Furthermore, even many on the right who detest the agenda and strategy of the ACLU were nonetheless in agreement that Moore ought not be allowed to retain his position.

Sadly, the government of the State of Alabama proceeded to carry the water for the ACLU by pursuing Moore with a zeal it never displayed when attempting to defend itself against that organization. Ultimately, Moore became another victim of a federal judge who himself had perverted not only the law, but the Constitution itself.

Among institutional “lawbreakers,” Moore is hardly alone. Yet in comparison to other violations of U.S. law being perpetrated at the highest levels of government, what are the real consequences to the rest of America of Moore’s actions? Admittedly, he may have “offended” the God-hating liberals at the ACLU, but most of America perceived no threat or impending danger from him.

While the ultimate propriety of Moore’s action could still be debated, his contention that a society which rejects the boundaries of absolute truth is on the road to collapse, has since proven prescient to the point of being nearly prophetic.

Some abominable events of the past week only serve to solidify this notion. (more…)

What happens when you have a moral breakdown in society, when families are systematically torn apart by the culture, and the government imposes costly regulations and requirements on the healthcare industry? You get socialized medicine.

So how is the moral breakdown of our culture and the deteriorating family related to healthcare? First, there are a couple of key premises that will serve as the foundation for this discussion. One key point is the family as defined by God.

In an effort to summarize this premise and use it as a foundation for this discussion, it should be understood that the family is the first and most basic building block for society. This is a based on the biblical notion that there is a God who created man and he placed man in families.

With that as a starting point, it next needs to be reiterated that God places people in families, first. He did not place them in a village, in a city, a state, or a nation, or even in a healthcare plan. He placed them in a family. No matter our station in life, somewhere in our past we have a father and a mother. We may not know them, or they may not have been the kindest people in the world, but they are our parents. Just as a politically incorrect side note, no one on this earth has two of either. We have one mother and one father, not two mothers or two fathers. There is one of each. This is what God defined as a family. Man as a created being is not free to change this definition.

By placing people in families, God laid the foundation for how we are to be raised, cared for, and educated. This is important, because there are certain qualities that one needs to care for others that can not be forced by state law, and can not be purchased with money. That is love, not compassion, but real genuine love is what enables people to truly care for others. Love, in its fullest expression, is being willing to lay down one’s life for the sake of another. In a less drastic expression, it is putting another’s needs above your own. This kind of sacrificial love is incubated in this incredible institution called the family. It is something that takes years to develop and to nurture. It is something that takes place naturally in a properly ordered family.

A sure sign of an improperly ordered family is where these relationships are strained or dysfunctional. We will see as we develop this line of thought further in other articles that this is also the crack in the foundation that leads to a shaky culture.

The discussion around healthcare in Tennessee is centered on what to do with Tenn Care and how can the state “make it work”. (more…)

Posted to the Editor of Cavalier Daily on November 18th, 2003 in response to
the following editorial.
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=17828&pid=1083

Dear Editor,

Alec Solotorovsky’s piece entitled “Farewell, Roy Moore — for now”, was an
absolute ridiculous representation of a situation that he either knows very
little about or has very little concern for the truth about the matter.

It is always amazing to me that people who have nothing in their life they
are willing to die for always ridicule those who do. When a man not only
speaks for something but actually follows up on his beliefs and acts, then
these cowards of self belief lash out and attack. Because they can not
fathom something worth giving everything in their own life for, they can not
imagine that someone else would have the conviction to do so.

The author did not consider that the salary of an Alabama Supreme Court
Chief Justice is $170,000 a year. I wonder if this author could loose that
amount each year and have “no regrets”. Not to mention that the retirement
package for a Chief Justice is 75% of that amount for life. That is $127,500
per year for the rest of his life. If we say the judge is in his mid 50s and
conservatively give him 20 years to live, that would mean the judge just
walked away from $2,550,000. Just to put it in perspective the governor has
a lower salary and no retirement package. So for those who say he did this
for financial gain, or so he could “run for governor”, I challenge you to
walk this same path in your career.

This piece goes on and on about how Judge Moore was “manipulating” the
people, that this whole event was a “manipulation of religious sentiment”.
Is it so far removed from this writer that some people actually have beliefs
and act on them? Is it that improbable that someone who was raised and lived
the majority of his life in Alabama would share the beliefs of others in
Alabama?

Perhaps it is not that he shares their beliefs that is his crime, perhaps it
is the fact that he refused to deny his beliefs when he became a leader in
Alabama.

The hypocrisy and the outright arrogance here is that the author attempts to
deny the fact that Judge Moore has convictions of the heart and if he does
allow for any minor moral conviction on the part of the judge he then
decries him for living out his beliefs. Yet at the same time by writing this
article the author puts forth his own beliefs, presumably as a standard by
which all men should be judged.

This cry for all leaders to deny their beliefs to hold office or to be able
to speak out on an issue is a sure path to the destruction of a great
nation. Whenever you attempt to separate a man from the beliefs that make
him, you no longer have a man worthy or capable of leadership. You have a
double minded man who is unstable in all his ways. One who lisps to and fro
on the winds of public opinions. In the mind of this writer, it is far past
time to seek more men like Judge Moore to lead this nation and restore the
moral integrity upon which it was founded.

Paul R. Vaughn
Nashville, TN
http://www.josiahproject.com

Ref. http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=17828&pid=1083

The Tale of Two Men
Paul R. Vaughn
Originally Published September 2nd, 2003

There are many lessons to share with you after returning from Montgomery Alabama during the Ten Commandment rallies.  There are enumerable stories, testimonies, and ideas that would encourage and strengthen you in your walk with God.  However, today I would like to share with you one concept: Obeying Your Conscience.  In reading Plutarch’s Lives, one finds a comparison of men from the Greek and Roman nations.  In like manner, the Ten Commandments battle has produced a great contrast in the character of two men.

The first, Justice Gorman Houston, is the senior Justice on the Alabama Supreme Court.  He believes the law is whatever a court says that it is.  Although a professing Christian he is a functional humanist.  The idea that man is the lawgiver and that whatever a court decrees is law is a cowardly and treacherous notion.  It was a lie when the King of England passed unjust laws to oppress the Colonies.  It was a lie in 1857 when the US Supreme Court ruled that slaves were property.  It was a lie in 1973 when the US Supreme Court said that a woman had a right to kill her unborn child, and it is a lie today.  Justice Houston’s confession of this is meant to appease the god of political correctness and to avoid any undo stress and anxiety in his own life.  To quote from Martin Luther King’s letter from the Birmingham Jail, Justice Houston is one

In sharp contrast to Justice Houston we have The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy S. Moore. (more…)