Suspended Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy S. Moore said Monday night that the Ten Commandments controversy he is embroiled in is not the ego trip some have claimed. “This is not about the Ten Commandments, it’s not about me, or even about religion. It’s about whether or not the state can acknowledge God,” he said. “And the time has come for Christians to stand up and be the salt and light God has made us to be.”

Justice Moore was suspended from the bench last month after disregarding a federal judge’s order to remove the 5,300-pound monument of the 10 Commandments from the rotunda of the Alabama state judicial building. The monument has since been placed in storage, and Justice Moore has filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court asking that the monument be returned. The judge is due in court next month to face charges of judicial ethics violations.

Speaking at Highland Park Baptist Church Monday night, Justice Moore said his fight was not confined to Alabama’s borders. “No matter if it’s the Ten Commandments in Georgia or Tennessee, the Bible in Houston, Texas, or a cross somewhere else, this is about our right to acknowledge God,” he said. “Only recently have judges had the audacity to say you can’t acknowledge God.”

Justice Moore said America has been on a “crooked trail” since 1962 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the 22-word prayer recited by schoolchildren every morning was unconstitutional. “Forty or 50 years ago, the worst things happening in our schools were kids chewing gum and not having a hall pass. Today, we have rape, murder, drugs and gang violence.”

“When we disassociated ourselves from God, we suffered,” he said. “We’ve followed a path right to destruction.”

While interrupted by several standing ovations, Justice Moore delved into the issue of separation of church and state, a concept he insisted many Americans misunderstand. “So many Americans, so many Christians, are confused about the relationship between God and government.”

Justice Moore gave numerous examples from the founding father’s writings detailing what he said was their intent to keep government out of the church, not to keep religion out of government. The judge said, “separation of church and state” is not found in the constitution, but that the concept was first introduced in the Bible.

“Separation of church and state comes from the fact that God created and ordained both institutions. One institution deals with the relationship between God and man; the other deals with the laws with which man would govern behavior under God’s law.”

Justice Moore said the framers of the constitution were not looking for excuses to invoke God’s name in their writings. He said they didn’t need to be told that God was sovereign or that humans were His creation - it was self-evident. But today, he said, these things are forgotten.

Justice Moore said the establishment clause of the First Amendment does not apply to Ten Commandment displays, or any other religious displays, because, he said, a monument cannot establish anything. “It’s a valid legal concept, but it is meant to keep the government out of the church. It means that judges shouldn’t be telling people how to think or what they can believe in.”

When judges begin legislating what citizens can think or believe and taking the law in their own hands, Justice Moore said, they have turned into tyrants. “As a judge, I’m elected and called to uphold the constitution of the United States and the constitution of Alabama. The judge said I have established religion with the monument and should remove it. Were I to uphold such an unlawful order, I, too, would be guilty of tyranny.”

Justice Moore criticized judges who rule against public displays of religious monuments or symbols, saying they were hypocrites. “Many courts open in prayer every day, people come into the courtroom and place their hand on the Bible and say ‘so help me God,’ but you can’t mention God in school?”

Justice Moore said he expects a decision from the Supreme Court on whether they will hear his case sometime in November. He asked the crowd of around 4,000 to pray, but also to write their congressional representatives asking for support.

“We need to tell Congress to take the monument out of the closet they put it in down in Alabama and put it in the U.S. Capital building,” he said. “We need to tell the courts that they won’t have the last word on our right to acknowledge God.”