Commandments fray goes beyond Alabama

Unless the US Supreme Court agrees to hear the case - unlikely since it rejected Moore's petition for a stay - the fight will soon end. Moore has until the end of September to file his petition to be heard. If the high court doesn't step in, Moore could run for office or, as Cohen suggests, fight as an outsider, on the model of Martin Luther King Jr. "You can't be a judge and defy a court order," Cohen says. The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission, charged with looking into Moore's possible contempt of court, may have to remove him from office.

Many of those in power have no quibble with the commandments, even in a courthouse. But most, except Moore's followers, agree that when the highest courts rule, they should be obeyed, says Richard Cohen, executive director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the civil liberties groups that brought the case against the tablets.

A new legal team assembled for the appeal has filed a lawsuit in federal court with a hearing set for Wednesday. Legal observers say it's an attempt to change the case from one about a religious display crossing the church-state divide to one about Moore's right of free speech and religious expression. It's a novel tactic - and one that may buy more time in the limelight.

The glass doors to the judicial building are locked, after a group of protesters refused to leave at closing last week when all eight members of the state Supreme Court voted to suspend Moore and comply with the federal court's order to remove the slabs from display. Protesters dropped to their knees and prayed. They were carried out.

Federal District Judge Myron Thompson imposed daily fines of $5,000 on the state for contempt of his ruling - a decision upheld this month by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. For that, Judge Thompson has received death threats. Morris Dees, founder and director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who conducted a tough cross-examination of Moore, is also staying out of public view due to threats on his life. And security around Montgomery is high, in anticipation of violence from Moore's followers upon the monument's removal.

Near the judicial building here, protests are varied. Sunday night, one man climbed up on the building. Police took him away hours later. Across the street from the court, protesters - atheists, Jews, gays, and others - demanded the monument be removed. "We came here to show that a majority of Alabamians want the monument removed now," says Larry Darby, state director for American Atheists. "Roy Moore is a renegade judge, a disgrace to the bench and the bar."

Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, a conservative Republican who's supported Moore in the past, tried to hire the same company to remove the monument that helped Justice Moore sneak it into the courthouse in the middle of the night. The company refused. The plan now is to move the 5,300-pound granite slabs to a closet, then to a less controversial site, such as a church.

Moore wiped sweat from his face during a statement Monday and quoted Patrick Henry: "Should I abandon my conscience now?" Protesters, mostly clad in shorts, shouted "No," as Moore and his blue-suited entourage left for a limousine.

Down the street on a shady bench, Thom-as Green watched people come and go, asking for change for a Coke. "I'm a Christian, but God don't need defending," he says. "Between Alabama and California, they could put Barnum and Bailey out of business."

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