n a letter to attorney Larry Darby, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has rejected a request to have the symbol of the American Atheists displayed next to a controversial Ten Commandments monument which Moore order placed in the state's Judicial Building last month.

   Darby, who serves as State Director of the Atheist civil rights and state-church separation group, had contacted Moore and requested equal access to the building's rotunda. A group of mostly-black legislators had earlier also attempted to place a memorial to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, but were turned back in their efforts by a phalanx of security police.

   Moore has defended the commandments display, saying that it is meant to remind citizens and those who operate the state's judicial system, that the Judeo-Christian Decalogue is the basis of law, and a pivotal symbol in American history. In a letter to Justice Moore, Darby argued that the Atheist symbol should be displayed in or represent "the importance of the use of scientific analysis in the creation of a better life for humankind."

   Justice Moore's response was curt and perfunctory. It read: "Having received your request dated August 29, 2001, I presented this matter before the Judicial Building Use Committee and by unanimous agreement of those present your proposal was rejected as not being in conformity with the purpose or theme of the foundation of American law and government..."

   In a statement to news media, Mr. Darby expressed disappointed with Moore's letter.

"I cannot say that I am surprised that Chief Justice Moore refused to allow our members the right to place a sculpture in the Alabama Supreme Court building. When he was a judge in Etowah County, Ala., he refused to obey a court order directing him to hang other legal and historical documents in the courtroom where he had installed a plaque of the Ten Commandments."

   Indeed, during his tenure as a county judge, Moore posted a hand-carved Decalogue board above his courtroom dais, and opened judicial proceeds with a religious invocation. A lawsuit was filed by the Alabama Freethinkers Association, and Moore was ordered to remove the Commandments display, or include secular, historical documents with it. He refused, and eventually the case was dismissed over jurisdictional technicalities. When he ran last year for Alabama's highest judicial post, the combative Moore pledged that if elected he would carry on his crusade to incorporate sectarian religion into public institutions, including the state Judicial Building.

   In early August, without fanfare or ceremony, Moore ordered placement of a 5,280-pound granite Ten Commandments monument in the building's rotunda.

   Darby, who is mulling legal action Moore, asked to display a plaster cast of the American Atheists "atomic whirl" logo which symbolizes science, materialism and open inquiry.

   "I'm concerned that Chief Justice Moore and the members of the Judicial Building Use Committee did not correctly understand the meaning of our proposed sculpture," said Darby. "The sculpture is intended to serve as a counterpoint to the chief justice's Ten Commandments monument and to remind visitors that our American judicial system and government were forged from Enlightenment thinking: the value of reason, unprejudiced inquiry and the application of logic to social organization."

   Critics say that by placing the Commandments monument in the rotunda, Moore may have had the unintended effect of creating a temporary "free speech zone." The black legislators who failed in their attempts to erect their commemoration to Dr. King have now formally met with Moore, and are expected to file a written request for a permit. The legislators have also promised further demonstrations if Moore denies their request.

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