Politics & Power Quote by Roy Moore

Moore’s move here is to drape a contemporary culture-war claim in the untouchable robes of the Founding Fathers, then smuggle in a much narrower moral authority: his own. By invoking “the forefathers, including James Madison,” he borrows Madison’s credibility as if it were a blank check. It’s a classic courtroom tactic in political form: cite the high authority, define the scope, declare the verdict.

The phrasing does a lot of quiet work. “Felt very strongly” suggests unanimity and intensity without evidence; it invites the listener to treat the matter as settled history rather than contested interpretation. “Duties that we owe to God” is the key tell. It sounds like a defense of religious liberty, but it’s also a claim that religion is not merely belief or community practice; it’s obligation. That word choice subtly elevates divine command over civic compromise, positioning government as suspect whenever it touches religious life, even when the issue is public law.

Context matters because Moore’s public career repeatedly tested the boundary he pretends to police. As an Alabama judge, he became nationally famous for installing a Ten Commandments monument and defying court orders to remove it, later resisting federal rulings on same-sex marriage. So the subtext isn’t just “keep government out of worship.” It’s “government should not restrain public expressions of my religion, even when courts say otherwise.”

The irony is Madison’s actual project: not protecting religion from government so faith can govern, but protecting government from religion so pluralism can survive. Moore’s quote flips that equilibrium, recasting constitutional restraint as persecution and religious power as mere privacy.