{"id":21340,"date":"2017-04-28T23:42:53","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T23:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=21340"},"modified":"2017-04-28T23:43:24","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T23:43:24","slug":"ayatollah-of-alabama-seeks-u-s-senate-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=21340","title":{"rendered":"‘Ayatollah of Alabama’ seeks U.S. Senate seat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This ought to be fun to watch, even if it’s occurring way over yonder in Alabama.<\/p>\n

The state has a vacant U.S. Senate seat, now that Jeff Sessions is serving as attorney general of the United States. That means the state has to conduct a special election to fill the seat.<\/p>\n

A fellow named Roy Moore has just entered the contest.<\/p>\n

Moore is the suspended Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who got himself into a jam because he told county clerks in his state that\u00a0they didn’t have to abide by federal law and approve marriage licenses for gay couples.<\/p>\n

Oops. Can’t do that!<\/p>\n

Now he wants to run for the Senate. Why does this matter to people outside of Alabama? Well, if this guy is elected it means he’ll take part in making law for the rest of us. That includes those of us in the Texas Panhandle.<\/p>\n

Moore is a fiery conservative. He once refused to remove a Ten Commandments tablet from the court grounds in Montgomery, Ala. He disagreed with decisions that the tablet violated the First Amendment rule prohibiting government sanctioning of religion.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy position has always been God first, family, then country,\u201d the Republican Moore said while announcing his candidacy for the Senate. OK, he’s a man of deep faith. I understand it. I have faith in God, too.<\/p>\n

The Southern Poverty Law Center — which routinely battles with the judge over his rulings — calls Moore the “Ayatollah of Alabama.”<\/p>\n

However, here’s the kicker: The oath he would take as a senator is a good bit like the one he took as a judge; it commits him to be faithful to the laws of the land, the U.S. Constitution, which — if you’ll pardon the pun — is the Bible of secular documents.<\/em><\/p>\n

All I can assure anyone, though, is that the special election in Alabama is bound to be a hoot.<\/p>\n

We’re about to see how it will affect the rest of the country.<\/p>\n\n

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This ought to be fun to watch, even if it’s occurring way over yonder in Alabama. The state has a vacant U.S. Senate seat, now that Jeff Sessions is serving as attorney general of the United States. That means the state has to conduct a special election to fill the seat. A fellow named Roy … Continue reading ‘Ayatollah of Alabama’ seeks U.S. Senate seat<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1863,2434,4037,5428,5051],"class_list":["post-21340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-gay-marriage","tag-jeff-sessions","tag-roy-moore","tag-ten-commandments","tag-us-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21340"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21344,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21340\/revisions\/21344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}