The Ten Commandments Money Machine
How Roy Moore profits from controversy.

Article I: $how Him The Money.

By JUDITH HANEY

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama   (USNewsLink) - - September 1, 2003

You can't live in Alabama without having Roy Moore's spectacle shoved down your throat by every media outlet in the state. Even if one isn't interested in Moore's various trials and tribulations, it is impossible to escape the hyped up pseudo-religious extravaganza he has adroitly manufactured and exploited for personal gain.

Moore's well planned and orchestrated "resistance" to U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson's order to remove the 5280-pound granite statue from the Alabama Judicial Building's rotunda has evolved into what his supporters call a national movement to "take back the courts."

Psychologists would characterize the dynamics of the Moore Money Machine as an informal group of opportunists who have unified around a counter-culture issue, i.e., "us" (the pseudo-Christians) against "them" (the federal court). Everyday the lists grows with new opportunists like James Dobson, Patrick Mahoney, Paul and Rob Schenck, Jerry Falwell, and John Anderson adding their support (their various websites hype the Ten Commandments controversy and solicit money).

So far, the Ten Commandments con is working, and working beautifully. Money is flowing in, media outlets can't seem to get enough of "that ol' time religion", and Roy Moore, the anti-hero, is riding high on a new wave of popularity.

All is well in Ten Commandmentsville, USA.

Or is it?

Where is all that money going?

While the financial channels are convoluted, multi-tentacled, and implemented in such a way as to disguise their true objectives and purpose, the money raised from Moore's high profile "God before Law" roadshow has, or will, eventually end up in the personal bank accounts of Roy Moore and his band of opportunists.

How much money has  Moore made so far from his high profile exploitation of his official capacity as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court? A conservative estimate is between $300-500,000. But   Moore won't reveal exactly how much, or where the money is being spent. He has shrouded his money machine with five layers of "employees" and a "foundation" in an effort to prevent anyone from ever knowing the actual dollar amount that is flowing into his and his wife's personal bank account.

Only a formal investigation into his earnings and sources of income will enable the public to learn who Roy Moore really is, and what role he is playing behind the scenes of his Money Machine. However, the signs are posted for those who are willing to read them.

To begin with, he is openly soliciting money from his website. And, he is involved with others who are soliciting money on his behalf from newly created Internet websites. Most of these money raising websites have become active within the past three weeks - beginning with Patrick Mahoney's high profile appearance in Montgomery, Alabama, which coincided with Moore's refusal to obey a federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments statue from the public building in Montgomery.

That the Ten Commandments controversy was purposely manipulated and exploited by Roy Moore & Company for the purpose of raising money is undisputed.

Moore carefully set the stage for the ultimate showdown two years ago when he put the religious monument in the Alabama Judicial Building during the middle of the night.

And by undertaking that specific act in defiance of legal convention (which is to keep non-secular religious symbols out of government buildings),  Moore set in motion a series of events that fell predictably into place like dominoes, i.e., he violated the law, he unsuccessfully defended his unlawful conduct, and the "payoff" came when he refused to obey a lawful order of the federal court which catapulted him into the national spotlight (essential for a serious fundraiser).

As was recently cited in an editorial,   Moore purposely chose to resist the federal court order on flimsy, unprecedented, grounds, i.e., on the premise that  Moore as Alabama's Chief Justice is somehow required by law to use his office to acknowledge God in ways that the chief justice himself determines.

By refusing to appeal the federal court ruling based upon tried and true precedent,  Moore guaranteed his fight would be protracted and inflammatory, and in so doing he invented the perfect con: (1) lie about his motives to gain favor with the faithful, (2) stick to his story to recruit new followers to his roadshow, (3) cloak the con in religious rhetoric, (4) bank the money and exit stage right to the religious lecture circuit as a magnet for the disenfranchised.

In sorting out the controversy, it is important to "watch" the actions of  Moore & Company, rather than "listen" to their religious rhetoric. For by watching, one can interpret Moore's underlying motives which have, to date, been disguised by his contemptible exploitation of the faith and beliefs of Alabama's citizens.

Moore is no Christian. He is a cold-blooded con man, and a bad one at that!