The summer of 2003 will be known for two significant political battles in Alabama.  It’s the summer of tax reform and the summer of the Ten Commandments.  Neither reflect well on this state or its people.

The tax reform issue will be decided on September 9^th.  According to the polls, Governor Riley’s plan to reform taxes, increase government accountability, and raise an additional $1.2 billion dollars in revenues is going down.  In flames.  For the record, I hope the polls are wrong (like they were before going into the lottery vote four years ago).  But the polls are showing a 30 point spread so it’s looking grim at the moment.

Which is a shame when you realize that this plan, if it does nothing else, would reform the most regressive income tax structure in the country.  Governor Riley, who has been telling anyone who would listen that our income tax structure is nothing short of immoral for more than two years, has had his conservatism, his Republicanism, his lineage, his sanity, and his political future repeatedly called into question over the last 90 days.  Now thanks to Chief Justice Roy Moore, Riley is now facing the indignity of having his religion called into question.

Of course the Chief Justice’s quest to display a 2 ½ ton monument of the Ten Commandments in the lobby of the state judicial building has made national news over the past few weeks.  Specifically, what has been newsworthy has been the good judge’s refusal to honor a federal court order to remove the monument from public display.  Invoking an incredible sense of deja-vu Justice Moore proclaimed to anyone who would listen that (1) the federal courts have no jurisdiction in Alabama, (2) the Bill of Rights does not apply to Alabama, (3) removal of the monument means he cannot acknowledge God in the judicial building.   It took the other eight justices of the Alabama, Supreme Court, the Attorney General, and the Judicial Inquiry Commission to tell the judge that he must obey the orders of the courts.

Perhaps the summer of 2003 should be known as the summer of the great religious war in Alabama.  On the one side is Justice Moore and his followers, telling us that the only way, Alabama’s Christians can acknowledge God is to display a monument that depicts the Ten Commandments. 

On the other is Governor Riley, joined by the Alabama Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and others, who suggest that it is not enough that Christians merely display the commandments but that we live them.  That we pay special attention to what Jesus himself had to say about the Commandments when asked which of the commandments was the greatest: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22: 37-40). 

There are a lot of us in the state who are curious as to how one can love one’s neighbor as oneself when we, as a state, take 12 % of the poorest people’s income and only 3-4 % of the wealthiest individual’s income.  There are many of us that wonder, as did the writer of I John, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help” (3: 17).  We vainly search the scriptures wondering exactly where it is that Jesus said he came to good news to the prosperous and tax relief to the wealthy.

Because there are so many other components to the Governor’s reform and accountability plan, I can accept that there are good people of strong and sincere faith that cannot support the entire plan.  I’ll argue with the folks that try to use to Bible to argue against tax reform, but in the end I’ll respect their faith even as I disagree with their action.

There is no such quarter from Justice Moore and his followers.  According to them the ONLY way Alabamians can acknowledge God is for Moore to be allowed to display a monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the judicial building.  Anyone who does not support his acknowledgment of God has been publicly cited by name as among the traitorous and the unfaithful.  That includes Governor Riley, a man putting his political future on the line, trying to live according to the principle of his faith.  It also includes Attorney General Pryor, who’s nomination to the federal bench was recently derailed by Senate Democrats who were afraid he was too much of a religious fanatic. 

Apparently Justice Moor is sees faith only in terms of his battles.  There is no man so dangerous as the one that thinks he and only he knows the mind of God.  Such a man can brook no dissent.

The polls are very clear where public sentiment lies. The monument wins.  Reforming an unjust tax system and helping the poor loses.  Heaven help us.

Past Columns:  1, 2, 3

Dr. Susan Fillippeli owns Phronesis Consulting and is a contributing writer for PurePolitics.com and be reached at fillise@earthlink.net .