Press Release

Humanists Decry Another Activist Judge in Alabama

For Immediate Release - Contact: Roy Speckhardt (202) 238-9088
rspeckhardt@americanhumanist.org - www.americanhumanist.org

(Washington, DC, December 15, 2004) "Alabama Circuit Judge Ashley McKathan is blatantly disregarding religious liberty," stated Tony Hileman, executive director of the American Humanist Association. Judge McKathan presided over a courtroom in southern Alabama wearing a robe on which the Ten Commandments were embroidered in gold, and then denied a motion filed by an attorney objecting to the robe on behalf of his client.

"As in every other state, Alabamans entrust their judges to be neutral arbiters of law, but McKathan instead followed in the footsteps of former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore who was thrown off the bench for a similarly flagrant violation," said Mel Lipman, AHA president and constitutional lawyer.

Humanists are concerned that McKathan's actions indicate that Humanists, Buddhists, Hindus, and others who don't view the Ten Commandments as their articles of faith will not receive equal treatment in the eyes of the law. Lipman explained, "How can those who don't want to swear on the Bible exercise their constitutional rights and affirm they will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when the judge is wearing a holy robe?"

The courts already sent Moore the clear message that blatant displays of the Ten Commandments on government property violate the law of the land, highlighting the abrasive nature of actions like McKathan's. "Today we hear judges in Massachusetts and California regularly derided as 'activists' for their decisions to interpret the law consistent with their states' constitutions, but McKathan and Moore are the true activist judges willing to violate the rules to push their sectarian beliefs," Hileman concluded.

The American Humanist Association is the oldest and largest Humanist organization in the nation. The AHA is dedicated to ensuring a voice for those with a positive nontheistic outlook, based on reason and experience, which embraces all of humanity.