April 16, 2009

America the Beautiful

A good friend, Ken Stevens, of the western performing group Latigo, forwarded this poem to me the other day. I found myself in agreement with its message and decided to post it here. I did a little background check on it through "Urban Legends" and found the following:

Comments: Circulating online since 1997 (at which time its author was listed as "Anonymous"), the above poem — this particular version of it, at any rate — has more recently been attributed to Alabama's notorious Judge Roy Moore. Since it has been vetted by presumably reliable sources, I have listed it here as authentic (see authorship update below).

Judge Moore vaulted to national prominence several years ago when, as Alabama's Chief Justice, he installed a 5,000-pound monument emblazoned with the Ten Commandments in the state's Supreme Court building. His defiance of a federal court order to remove it on grounds that it violated the Constitutional principle of separation of church and state led to Moore's suspension in 2003.

He is also a self-styled poet. In his 2005 book, So Help Me God: The Ten Commandments, Judicial Tyranny, and the Battle for Religious Freedom, Moore evinces a lifelong love of poetry and mentions several of his own efforts, including "Our American Birthright," an inspirational ditty quite similar in style and theme to "America the Beautiful."

Among the sources citing Roy Moore as the author of the poem are The American Spectator, the Associated Press, and WorldNetDaily.com.

UPDATE: The poem was 'partly' written by Moore
In a February 6, 2006 email from the headquarters of Judge Roy Moore's Foundation for Moral Law in Montgomery, Alabama, the organization's secretary Heather Moore wrote: "Part of the poem was anonymous and part was written by the Chief Justice. There are several different versions being circulated [and] this is but one."


America the Beautiful
by Roy Moore

America the beautiful,
or so you used to be.
Land of the Pilgrims' pride;
I'm glad they'll never see.

Babies piled in dumpsters,
Abortion on demand,
Oh, sweet land of liberty;
your house is on the sand.

Our children wander aimlessly
poisoned by cocaine
choosing to indulge their lusts,
when God has said abstain

From sea to shining sea,
our Nation turns away
From the teaching of God's love
and a need to always pray

We've kept God in our
temples, how callous we have grown.
When earth is but His footstool,
and Heaven is His throne.

We've voted in a government
that's rotting at the core,
Appointing Godless Judges;
who throw reason out the door,

Too soft to place a killer
in a well deserved tomb,
But brave enough to kill a baby
before he leaves the womb.

You think that God's not
angry, that our land's a moral slum?
How much longer will He wait
before His judgment comes?

How are we to face our God,
from Whom we cannot hide?
What then is left for us to do,
but stem this evil tide?

If we who are His children,
will humbly turn and pray;
Seek His holy face
and mend our evil way:

Then God will hear from Heaven;
and forgive us of our sins,
He'll heal our sickly land
and those who live within.

But, America the Beautiful,
If you don't - then you will see,
A sad but Holy God
withdraw His hand from Thee..

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