The World Around You

Roy’s Rock has been moved from the rotunda of the State Judicial Building at approximately three minutes after 9:00 am this morning.

I noticed a greatly increased police presence in downtown Montgomery this morning. Local radio is reporting that the ten commandments monument is in the process of being moved to another location in the state Judicial Building. AP reports,

A moving company began preparations Wednesday morning to move the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building to comply with a federal court order to remove it from public display.

Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said state officials told him that the monument would be moved to another location within the building and that moving equipment is already inside. Two state police officers and two state police officers could be seen studying the monument to determine how to move it.

Mahoney said building manager Graham George told him that monument will not be covered and that he will be allowed inside to see it once it’s moved. Mahoney said he doesn’t know whether the monument’s new location will be accessible to the public.

Protest organizers asked the crowd outside the Judicial Building not to rush the building or do anything except pray.

Acting Chief Justice Gorman Houston released a statement directly contradicting statements made by John Giles of the Christian Coalition. Giles charged that Moore had been denied access to his office and that his employees’ jobs were being threatened. He even went so far as to call the tactics a coup,

Phillip Jauregui, one of Moore’s lawyers, said he could not address whether the chief justice had been denied access to his office.

Houston’s statement — released by his staff attorney, Marc Ayers, late Monday — contradicted Giles’ account.

“The chief justice has access both to his office and to his employees,” the statement read. “Furthermore, his employees’ jobs have in no way been put in jeopardy or otherwise threatened. Suggesting the existence of a ‘coup’ is patently absurd, wholly irresponsible, and, therefore, immoral.”

The statement went on to say that the only limit on Moore’s access was a rule of the Judicial Inquiry Commission, the judicial ethics panel. That rule specifies that judges cannot continue to work while charges are pending with the Court of the Judiciary.