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Anthony Sebok from FindLaw.com does a good job of picking apart the parallels to Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement that have been invoked by Roy and his supporters.

For Moore to claim that his position today is anything like that of King’s in 1963 is incredible. Let’s state the obvious: Moore is one of the most privileged people in Alabama today. Not only is he privileged by his race and gender, but he is the highest judge in the state. Nothing stops him or his supporters from pressing their point of view.
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Moore’s actions raise the interesting question of what a judge should do when his or her oath of office conflicts with the law or constitution of the land. Not only American judges in the antebellum era but also judges in Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa have faced this issue.

The solution is not easy. Sometimes a judge can find ways to interpret the law that conform to both its language and his or her morality. But if he or she cannot, if the law is clearly immoral, then the judge’s only moral choice might be to resign and become a private citizen.

UPDATE: James has an excellent analysis of this piece as well.

Here’s a great piece from the San Francisco Chronicle discussing the discrepancies in different versions of the ten commandments. A particularly interesting point,

Then there is the question of what the commandments were meant to mean.

For example, the First Commandment that “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” indicates that it was OK to have gods other than Yahweh, so long as Yahweh was No. 1.

Monotheism came later.

“Thou shalt not commit adultery” is either commandment six or seven and originally only forbade sex with a married woman.

Married men were free to have sex with other females. That’s because establishing paternity, not maintaining sexual purity, was the reason for that commandment.

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