Official Installs Commandments at City Hall

U.S. House candidate uses holiday to set up, inspired by Judge Moore

January 20, 2004
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Inspired by ousted Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, a city council member in North Carolina placed a one-ton granite block bearing the Ten Commandments on a walkway in front of the Winston-Salem city hall.

Vernon Robinson, a candidate for a vacant U.S. House seat, said he paid $2,000 out of his personal funds to install the monument on a walkway yesterday in front of the city hall, which was deserted because of the Martin Luther King holiday, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.

"This display is intended to acknowledge the undeniable role that the Ten Commandments and Bill of Rights have played in developing the American legal tradition," Robinson said, according to the Associated Press. "These are the ideas on which society has been built and these works encapsulate the belief system on which the republic was founded."

The councilman said he decided to install the monument after speaking in October with Moore, who was ousted as chief justice last November after refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from Alabama's state judicial building.

Robinson's five-foot tall monument has the Ten Commandments inscribed on one side facing Main Street and an abbreviated version of the Bill of Rights on the side facing city hall.

The city council member said he wanted the monument to be a surprise to the city's citizens and insisted he had no thought of what effect it would have on his campaign for the Republican nomination for the 5th Congressional District, the Winston-Salem paper said.

The honary chairman for Robinson's campaign is former senator and vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp, who calls him a "true Ronald Reagan conservative."

Kemp said Robinson has "led the fight for school choice, less government spending, and pro-growth tax cuts in North Carolina for many years."

Robinson said he and four helpers set up the monument on the holiday because the adjoining parking lot was empty, allowing moving equipment to position the blue-granite block.

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