A Christian talk-show host who sued to reinstate Roy Moore after his ouster as Alabama’s chief justice isn’t supporting his run for governor, citing his ties to groups she says want to impose a theocracy.

“You may say I am crazy for coming out against Roy Moore for governor, and it saddens me to have to do it,” radio personality Kelly McGinley says on her Web site. “This position will bring a firestorm on my head. I have spent much time and money supporting Roy Moore. I love him and his family. They have spent weeks at my condo in Orange Beach. I have taken his kids tubing in my boat. I ran his campaign in Mobile and have worked tirelessly for years for his cause. My talk show and Web page have dedicated much time and space for this issue.”

McGinley said she fears Moore’s election could lead to a scenario where he puts the Ten Commandments in the Statehouse, someone sues, and a judge orders their removal. Should Moore refuse, President Bush might order troops to Alabama to enforce federal law.

She said many of Moore’s backers are “Dominionists,” whom she fears could use the conflict as an excuse to impose their version of “biblical law.” She links Moore’s candidacy with a conspiratorial web including the Republican Party, the Council for National Policy, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Masons.

“It’s too extreme for the likes of me,” she said in the Birmingham News, noting that the primary election takes place on June 6–as in 6/6/06–similar to the “666” made famous in Revelation 13:18 as “the number of the beast.”

Moore, who made his long-anticipated run for governor official Oct. 3, is best known for placing a Ten Commandments monument in the state judicial building. He was removed as chief justice in 2003 after refusing to obey an order by a federal judge to remove the monument.

McGinley filed two lawsuits seeking to have the Ten Commandments put back in place and to get Moore reinstated to his elected position, claiming Moore’s removal disenfranchised her as a voter.

McGinley helped arrange a 2002 rally covered by the Montgomery Advertiser, where she hailed Moore as a West Point graduate, war hero and defender of American values. “We live in a time and a day when people call what is evil, good and what is good, evil,” McGinley said. “We live in a time when everything is turned upside-down, and we live in a lawless country.”

She claimed in a May 2004 commentary that her support for Moore was one reason the state Republican Party blocked her run for state school board.

“What is their gripe with me?” she said of the party’s leaders. “Well, I have several theories. One, they do not like that I expose RINO’S, ‘Republican In Name Only’ often on my show. I am one of those funny Republicans. I like my public servants to obey the Constitution and the Republican platform.

“Two, I am a big supporter of former Chief Justice Roy Moore, and most Republican office holders turned against him. Not that they ever really liked him, except to ride his coattail to victory.

“Thirdly, through the ‘League of Christian Voters,’ we are trying to get out of office any who did not support Moore. We in the Republican Assembly endorse only true conservatives in the primary.”

McGinley says her change of heart came while having lunch with Moore recently, when he “stated that Alabama needs to understand what it means if he becomes governor.”

“I sat dazed,” she wrote. “I should have asked, ‘What do you mean,’ so I could be sure what he intended. I was dazed because I DO know what it means if he becomes governor. The likely scenario is this. He puts the 10 Commandments in the State House.  Someone sues. Judge rules for them to be removed. Governor Moore says NO, President Bush invades Alabama with federal or NATO troops.”

In case that sounds far-fetched, she cites a Boston Globe article from June with a similar scenario illustrating why Moore’s popularity with conservatives could become a problem for the GOP: “Moore, a Republican who enjoys widespread support in his home state, is poised to run against a vulnerable Republican governor. If he wins, some party strategists speculate, he could defy a federal court order again by erecting a religious monument outside the Alabama state Capitol building. With the 2008 presidential race looming, President Bush would then face a no-win decision: either call out the National Guard to enforce a court order against a religious display on state grounds or allow a fellow born-again Christian to defy the courts.”

There is also historical precedent. According to an Oct. 24, 2004, story in the Mobile Register, President Kennedy was prepared to send more than 20,000 troops to Alabama–if resistance to integration had become more violent–when Gov. George Wallace attempted to block enrollment of two black students at the University of Alabama.

But McGinley goes further. “In the past six years of knowing and supporting Roy Moore, I have seen and visited with the big guns that are behind him,” she says. “I have come to learn who they represent. What I have found is shocking. There are connections to the Council for National Policy, Dominionists, Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Masons. Their philosophies are very dangerous for Bible-believing Christians.”

“Christians and patriots are purposely being provoked to bear arms against their government,” she said, linking to a CNP Web site. “The Beast system is using religion and patriotism to bring about a slaughter of deceived folks and a slaughter of what’s left of our Bill of Rights and Constitution.”

She called on listeners to “overcome them by not falling for their ploys, but exposing them.”

“Folks, the sad truth is that our country is gone,” she said. “We need to set our sights on heaven and love not the things of this world. The time to fight the Beast system in the physical realm is past. We overcome the Beast by the blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony, and not loving our life to the end.

“The time is now to watch unto prayer and the patient waiting for our Saviour, Jesus Christ.”

According to the Birmingham News, McGinley’s show is broadcast on one station in Alabama, a couple of small stations across the country and over the Internet.

Moore has not responded to news stories about McGinley’s comments. In other news related to his gubernatorial campaign, Moore recently filed a financial disclosure form required by ethics law, reporting his income in 2004 from speaking engagements and sale of his book So Help Me God as more than $250,000. That is more than three times the $96,361 he would earn annually as governor.

Bob Allen is managing editor of EthicsDaily.com.

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