Yes, the Commandments monument got moved, and yes, that's a good victory -- but how many people in Alabama understand it? The one real poll I found, a Mobile Register-University of South Alabama survey from July, says 77% of Alabamans "approve" or "strongly approve" of the monument. The current issue of Church & State, the newsletter of Americans United for the Separation of Church & State (not available online yet), quotes a lawyer who joined the lawsuit against the monument who says she's "heard people say Judge Moore is the most popular man in the state"; the lawyer, by contrast, has had windows in her house broken and had to close her law office in Brewton when clients stopped showing up.

All we want is for these people to pray where their prayer doesn't suggest that their God is part of state authority. That gives them a hell of a lot of places to pray, and we never try to interfere with them in those places. If they think they have the inalienable right to turn the whole world into their church if they so please, could they at least grasp the concept that a reasonable person (or the Constitution) might believe that their freedom of worship has geographic limits, just as my freedom of speech doesn't allow me to mount a soapbox in their living rooms? Even if they disagree, could they please just try to get it?