Alabama chief justice rejects offer from North Carolina

GASTONIA, N.C. -- Alabama's chief justice appreciates the gesture from Gaston County, but Roy Moore plans to keep his monument of the Ten Commandments close by while he fights in court.

Gaston commissioners this past week voted to offer to haul the monument to Gastonia and display it on the county courthouse grounds.

The monument, which Moore installed in the Alabama Judicial Building two years ago, was moved to a private area Wednesday to comply with a court order that found it violated a constitutional ban on government promotion of religious doctrine.

A spokeswoman for Moore said Friday that he wants to keep the 2 1/2-ton monument and eventually get it back in the building's rotunda.

Gaston's offer is "very sweet and kind," said Jessica Atteberry, a spokeswoman for Moore through the Foundation for Moral Law, which oversees his legal defense fund. "But he owns the monument. Once it came down from the rotunda it became under his full ownership. And he wants to see it restored to its rightful place."

Other offers to store the monument are coming in, she said, including one from Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and his Republican challenger, Haley Barbour.

The Ten Commandments are already displayed on a Gaston courthouse wall in the rear of the commission's board room, and in front of the Gastonia City Hall. Gaston officials said the courthouse plaque has never been challenged.