To put it colloquially, one of the candidates for Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice on the ballot tomorrow is a snake in the grass. And, if this state elects him into office, it should expect him to bite. Again.

The last time around, we had to watch as he adamantly disregarded the will of a federal judge in favor of the “will” of his god. We had to watch as the Alabama Court of the Judiciary removed him from office – the same office he’s seeking now – because he wouldn’t remove from the Alabama Supreme Court Building a 5,280-pound, solid-granite monument to everything the First Amendment protects us from when it forbids Congress from passing “any law respecting an establishment of religion.”

We’re talking, of course, about Roy Moore, the marshal of the parade of incompetents, bigots and idiots that make their name in Alabama politics by latching their fangs to the concept of separation of church and state hoping to poison it to death. Moore first bit back in 2004, when he insisted he had the right to erect a monument of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court Building.

The problem was that he had absolutely no such right as a public official. To be sure, any citizen has the right to believe, as Moore says he does, that the Ten Commandments are the “moral foundation” of U.S. law. But every citizen has the right, guaranteed by the First Amendment, to not have that view thrust upon him or her by the government.

But Moore did not understand that concept in 2004. It got him fired then. He still does not, and we have no idea what this fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the chief justice could get him and our state into if he’s elected on Tuesday.

That makes this election more than a partisan contest, and that is the first reason The Crimson White endorses Moore’s opponent, Bob Vance. The second is, somewhat sadly, this election could be close.

Vance entered the race in August after the Alabama Democratic Party realized it made a bumbling error by nominating Harry Lyon, who subsequently called proponents of gay marriage sick and perverted.

As a result, Vance has had only a few months to raise funds and campaign. By contrast, Moore’s whole life is a campaign, a moral crusade that unfortunately won’t end even if he does lose Tuesday.

Moore has said that gay marraige “will be the ultimate destruction of our country because it destroys the very foundation upon which this nation is based.” Gay marriage is a divisive political issue, but it would not destroy the country nor would it erode its foundations. The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court should be concerned with applying Alabama law, not saving the country from social policies he opposes.

While Democrats refused to let Lyon remain a spokesman for their party after he made his disaparaging remarks, if Moore is elected, he will be a spokesman for the entire state.

Vance got his undergraduate degree from Princeton and studied law at Virginia. He’s been a trial judge in Jefferson County for ten years, and he says he’ll keep his politics, not to mention his religion, out of the courtroom. That’s where it belongs – in the hearts and minds of individuals.

The Crimson White Editorial Board is as divided politically as any group of nine people in our country today. This, though, we can agree on. Bob Vance is not young, but he represents an opportunity for young people to salvage the system that Roy Moore and his generation have poisoned. Or, at least, he would allow them to be able to say they attended college in Alabama and not be ashamed to do so because of the perennial embarrassment that would be Roy Moore’s second go-around as Chief Justice.

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Our View is the consensus of The Crimson White Editorial Board.