came the first full-time deputy district attorney for
Etowah County, Alabama. In 1982, he ran an unsuc-
cessful campaign for circuit court judge of Etowah
County. Moore returned to Gadsden, where he es-
tablished a private practice. In 1986, he ran another
unsuccessful campaign, this time for district attor-
ney. He remained politically inactive until his ap-
pointment by Governor Guy Hunt as Etowah County
judge. Upon taking his position, Moore decorated
his courtroom with various state and legal symbols.
He also placed a handmade wooden Ten Command-
ments plaque behind his bench “to reflect [his] be-
lief in the Supreme Lawgiver of the universe...
[and] to acknowledge God.” Moore also opened his
court with prayer every day.
In June, 1993, Joel Sogol, an attorney with the Ala-
bama American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
threatened to file suit against anyone who con-
ducted public prayer in court, but Moore was not de-
terred. The ACLU recorded Moore’s prayer in June,
1994, and continued to threaten lawsuit. During
that summer, Moore began campaigning for circuit
judge, facing opposition led by the ACLU regarding
his public prayer and Ten Commandments display.
November witnessed his election by nearly 60 per-
cent of those voting. The ACLU filed suit in U.S. dis-
trict court against Moore regarding his prayer and
Ten Commandments plaque, declaring the prayer a
“religious test.” However, on July 7, 1995, the judge
dismissed the case, determining that the plaintiffs
lacked standing. The ACLU filed complaint again in
1996, and trial began in September of that year. The
judge in the trial declared the plaque constitutional
but the prayer unconstitutional; though prayers had
to cease, Moore’s display was permissible as part of a
historical display. In February, 1997, the judge from
the trial visited Moore’s courtroom and determined
that the display must be removed. An appeal set be-
fore the Alabama Supreme Court was ultimately dis-
missed in January, 1998. Increasingly confident,
Moore declared his campaign for chief justice of the
Alabama Supreme Court on December 7, 1999.
Impact Moore’s case brought renewed national at-
tention to issues of religion and politics and new fer-
vor to the church-state debate.
Subsequent Events Judge Moore was sworn in as
chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court on Janu-
ary 15, 2001. Justice Moore installed a two-ton mon-
ument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of
the Alabama Judicial Building on July 31, 2001. He
faced legislation from the ACLU and Southern Pov-
erty Law Center in the federal courts in 2002 and- The monument was removed from the ro-
tunda by order of a judge, and Roy Moore was re-
moved from his position as chief justice.
Further Reading
Feldman, Noah.Divided by God: America’s Church-State
Problem—and What We Should Do About It. New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
Moore, Roy, with John Perry.So Help Me God: The Ten
Commandments, Judicial Tyranny, and the Battle for
Religious Freedom.Nashville: Broadman & Hol-
man, 2005.
Meredith HolladaySee also Censorship; Christian Coalition; Conser-
vatism in U.S. politics; Religion and spirituality in
the United States; Right-wing conspiracy; Supreme
Court decisions. Morissette, Alanis
Identification Canadian singer-songwriter
Born June 1, 1974; Ottawa, Ontario, CanadaMorissette gave voice to a new generation of young women
who felt both aggrieved and empowered with respect to the
social situation in the 1990’s. She became one of the most
popular singers of the latter half of the decade.Alanis Morissette, the daughter of a Canadian man
(Anglophone despite the French surname) and a
woman who had been a refugee from the suppression
of the Hungarian rebellion in 1956, was a child star
during the 1980’s and early 1990’s. She was promoted
by various producers, at least one of whom pursued a
romantic relationship with her, to which she later re-
ferred in her songs. Importantly, Morissette wrote or
cowrote her own songs after the age of fifteen.
Morissette released two albums in the early 1990’s.
These were only limited successes. These were fol-
lowed by her 1995 breakout,Jagged Little Pill,co-
written with producer Glen Ballard.
Female singers had become increasingly promi-
nent during the 1990’s, but Morissette was one of the
youngest and most unconventional of these to gain
wide acclaim. The first single fromJagged Little Pill,
“You Oughta Know,” concerns a woman in the after-The Nineties in America Morissette, Alanis 583