Roy Moore

It’s been a week of pants-on-fire-level, anti-Muslim rhetoric: Days after a U.S. Senate candidate made ridiculous claims about Sharia law being implemented in the American heartland, President Donald J. Trump recirculated a widely discredited trope about brutal war-time treatment of Muslims.

Both claims earned the top “Pants on Fire” rating from the fact-checking website PolitiFact. And both claims only served to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment as the country is still reeling from the hate-filled events in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend.

There are people who support separation of church and state in the South – plenty of them. It has been my privilege over the years to meet with some.  

They even exist in Alabama. But there’s no denying that many of the residents of that state – and the Deep South generally – are enamored of very conservative forms of Christianity and see government as a vehicle for promoting that faith. They call this region the Bible Belt for a reason.

In late December, you start seeing “Top Ten” lists for the year that was. So without further ado, here are the Top Ten Church-State Stories from 2016 (in my humble opinion, at least):

If U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is confirmed as U.S. attorney general, his seat in the Senate will be open. The governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley (R), will have to a name a replacement to fill out the rest of Sessions’ term, which expires in 2020. 

Bentley is getting a head start on things by interviewing potential replacements. One of the names on his short list may surprise you: It’s Roy Moore.

Good news from Alabama: Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has been suspended from the court without pay for the remainder of his term.

Technically, Moore has not been removed from office, but today’s decision by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary has that effect. He has been suspended for the rest of his term, and he can’t run again because Alabama law prohibits anyone older than 70 from being appointed to or elected to the bench. (Moore will turn 70 in February.)

Alabama’s anti-gay chief justice, Roy Moore, was on trial before a state ethics board yesterday. He stands accused of instructing Alabama officials to defy the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision. Based on media reports, it seems the longtime foe of Americans United didn’t make a very strong case for keeping his job.

But before we get to that, here’s a recap of events leading up to this point: