June 6 (Bloomberg) -- Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore looked triumphant as he preached on the plaza of the federal courthouse in Montgomery this week, an occasional ``Amen'' rising from his followers.

``People better wake up to what's happening in this country,'' Moore warned, news cameras rolling. If he loses his cause, he said, ``Every mention of God will eventually be stricken in public life.''

That's not true, although it is true he'll probably lose his case, which had just been argued on Wednesday before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The issue is whether Moore brought the church too close to the state when he installed a 2 1/2-ton monument to the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the state judicial building in Montgomery.

Moore's case had just suffered severe blows delivered by two members of the three-judge appellate panel, both of them conservative, both appointed by Republican presidents.

Why, after that, was this man smiling? Because no matter what happens, he wins.

``If we buy this argument, the chief justice can decorate the courthouse in any religious motif he likes,'' Judge Edward Carnes said to Moore's lawyer.

Any judge in the state, said Carnes, ``in big block letters, behind his bench, for all the lawyers and everyone else to see, could spell out, `What would Jesus Do?'''

Conservatives Chafe

Wouldn't THAT violate the Constitution, Carnes asked?

It would not, responded Moore's lawyer, Herbert Titus.

For Moore and Titus to meet total opposition from Carnes underscores the extremity of their position. Born in Albertville, Alabama, Carnes worked as the state's top death penalty lawyer before the first President Bush appointed him to the federal bench.

Conservative as he is, native-born though he be, he said from the bench that the implications of Moore's argument are ``staggering.'' He meant that in a bad way.

Even more conservative is Chief 11th Circuit Judge J. L. Edmondson of suburban Atlanta, whom President Ronald Reagan appointed. He told Titus he'd personally welcome a lower wall between church and state.

And yet, ``It's a hard day's work'' for Titus and Moore to prevail on one critical point, Edmondson said. ``You're going to have to tell me something else'' to convince him on another crucial point.

Block of Stone

The third judge, U.S. District Judge Richard Story from Gainesville, Georgia, an appointee of President Bill Clinton's, was silent throughout the argument.

He didn't have to talk for it be obvious that for Moore to find a two-judge majority among this trio would be harder than building a giant golden calf. A decision is weeks, if not months, away.

This may seem like a silly fight over a block of stone which coerces no one to convert and which comforts many. But it's an impressive and audacious monument with meaning that reaches beyond the building that houses it.

That's why even if Moore loses his case, he would win.

To much of the population of this Bible Belt state, he would become a martyr to a holy cause, quashed by an anti-religious federal bench. The same godless attitude has made abortion legal and barred God from schoolhouses, Moore's supporters have argued.

For church-state separatists to sue Moore over his monument carries his message further and energizes his supporters. And yet, what's the alternative for those who believe that if the Constitution's bar on government-anointed religion is to have meaning, you have to enforce it?

Reclaiming the Courthouse

``It's a real dilemma,'' says Marc Stern, chief counsel to the American Jewish Congress, which filed a brief opposing Moore's position. He said Moore left the group little choice with his ``in- your-face'' monument. They're ``a provocation designed to reclaim the courthouse from secular America,'' says Stern.

Moore has been campaigning for years to have God, as Moore defines Him, acknowledged as governing the law of mortals.

As a trial judge in Gadsden, Alabama, he mounted a Ten Commandments plaque in his courtroom and opened court with prayer. Civil libertarians sued and won preliminary rulings but lost on procedural grounds.

The suits nonetheless served Moore, as they bolstered his campaign for the state's top judicial slot. He won in 2000 as ``The Ten Commandments Judge.''

Moore hadn't been in his new job long when, during the night of July 31, 2001, he had workers install the 5,280-pound monument to the Ten Commandments, which Moore helped design and for which, he says, he paid.

It stands 4-feet tall and features the two familiar tablets, engraved with the commandments, atop a block of granite. Quotes from historical figures and government documents acknowledging God's sovereignty decorate the monument's base.

Moral Foundation

``May this day mark the beginning of the restoration of the moral foundation of law,'' Moore said when he dedicated the monument. He hoped it would bring a ``return to the knowledge of God in our land.''

Lawyers whose work brings them to the judicial building sued, saying the monument made them feel like outsiders, as they do not share Moore's religious beliefs. They're represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

When Moore testified in defense of his monument, he repeated that he'd erected it to acknowledge God's law as sovereign over man's.

It's a point he made ``over and over in trial court testimony,'' lawyer Ayesha Khan of Americans United argued to the panel Wednesday.

And yet, Moore takes the legal position that his aim was also secular, and therefore constitutional. He's displaying God's historical role in the development of U.S. law, he says.

For Moore, it seems, there's little difference between proselytizing and reciting history.

``This isn't about where the line is,'' says Stern. `It's about whether there is a line.''

Last Updated: June 6, 2003 08:50 EDT