- ATLANTA (Reuters) - Alabama's
former chief justice said on Thursday he would ask the state's highest
court to overturn a decision to strip him of his job for refusing a federal
order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse.
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- Roy Moore, a fundamentalist Christian whose defiance
last summer stirred a national debate over the role of religion in public
life, said he would file his appeal in Alabama's Supreme Court by Dec.
10. He had not previously said publicly whether he would challenge his
removal.
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- Moore made the announcement in a news release issued
by the Christian Coalition of Alabama, a group that strongly backed him
throughout the confrontation over the monument.
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- Moore was stripped of his office by the Alabama Court
of Judiciary on Nov. 13, less than two months after he was suspended for
defying a U.S. District Court order to remove the 5,000-pound (2.3-tonne)
Ten Commandments display from the state judiciary building in Montgomery.
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- The federal court had ruled that the stone marker, which
was installed in 2001 by Moore and his supporters as a symbol of the Judeo-Christian
foundation of U.S. law, violated the constitutional ban on government promotion
of religion.
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- Moore, who was elected as chief justice of the Bible
Belt state in 2000, described the order as "unlawful" and said
obeying it would have required him to break his pledge to follow the constitutions
of Alabama and the United States.
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- His position won wide support from many Christians across
the South, but was sharply criticized by civil liberties groups who accused
Moore of trying impose his religious beliefs on others.
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