US: Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was yesterday fired from his $170,000 a year job for refusing a federal court's order to remove a slab of granite inscribed with the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of his court.
The placing of the slab on public display in state premises was judged to violate the separation of church and state in the US Constitution.
A nine-member judicial ethics panel voted unanimously to remove the chief justice for acting "above the law".
Mr Moore said his act was a moral and lawful acknowledgment of God but Alabama attorney general Mr William Pryor said such defiance, left unchecked, would harm the judicial system.
The chief justice has become a hero to religious conservatives for his stand over the monument, which has been removed to a storage room in the court house. Supporters who have been holding prayer vigils outside the court in Montgomery applauded the judge as he left the court.
"It's about whether or not you can acknowledge God as a source of our law and our liberty," he said. "That's all I've done. I've been found guilty." Mr Moore said he had consulted political and religious leaders and would make an announcement next week that "could alter the course of this country." The judge, who is expected to enter politics in the conservative southern state, got moral support from Alabama Governor Bob Riley who said he was "disappointed and concerned that the federal courts continue to attempt to remove references to God and faith from public arenas." Presiding Judge William Thompson said yesterday the court had no choice in its decision after Mr Moore "wilfully and publicly" ignored the federal court order.
A federal judge had ruled the monument was an unconstitutional promotion of religion by the government, and the US Supreme Court had refused to hear an appeal.
Mr Moore said unless states stood up, "public acknowledgment of God will be taken from us. 'In God we trust' will be taken from our money and one nation under God from our pledge."