LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nagisa_kaworu)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was fired in 2003 for disobeying a federal order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a courthouse, said on Monday he would be a candidate for governor of Alabama in 2006.

Moore, a fundamentalist Christian from northern Alabama who supports school prayer and opposes gays, pledged to fight against higher taxes, tighten restrictions on illegal immigrants and improve education if elected.


"It is a crucial time to run for office when rights and liberties are being eroded, taxes climb, the education of our children declines and morality erodes while judges tell children they cannot pray," Moore said at a rally in Gadsden, 63 miles northeast of Birmingham.

"I believe that God is leading me to uphold the laws in Alabama and guide its policies," Moore said in an interview after he announced his candidacy.

Elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2000, Moore rose to national prominence in 2003 when he refused to remove a Ten Commandments display from a public area in the state judiciary building in Montgomery.

U.S. District Court Judge Myron Thompson had ruled that the 5,000-pound (2.3-ton) stone marker, installed by Moore and his supporters in 2001, violated the constitutional ban on government promotion of religion.

Moore contended the order was unlawful because it countermanded his constitutional obligation to acknowledge God.

more here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100300998.html