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A moving crew removed the Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building on Wednesday to comply with a federal court order, as anguished protesters prayed at the building's steps.
Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, a group fighting the move, said state officials told him that the 5,300-pound monument was being moved to another location within the building and that moving equipment was already inside.
A federal judge ruled last year that the monument, which Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore installed two years ago, violates the constitution's ban on government promotion of religion and ordered its removal by Aug. 20. The U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to hear Moore's appeal.
Moore had refused to comply. Eight associate justices voted Aug. 21 to remove the monument, and Moore was suspended the next day on charges of violating canons of judicial ethics.
Protest organizers asked the crowd outside the Judicial Building not to rush the building or do anything except pray.
An afternoon hearing had been scheduled in federal court in Mobile on a lawsuit seeking to keep the monument in the rotunda, but Richard Cohen, a Southern Poverty Law Center attorney suing to remove it, said the state attorney general's office advised him the hearing was canceled.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of a Christian radio talk show host and a pastor, had argued that forced removal of the monument would violate the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion.
Attorney General Bill Pryor, defending the associate justices, had argued that the Mobile court lacks jurisdiction and the complaint lacked merit.
Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the lawsuit relied on ''outlandish legal arguments to defend the justice's blatant promotion of religion.''
About 150 monument supporters marched on Pryor's office Tuesday, demanding he resign for supporting the associate justices' decision. Seven representatives were allowed inside to meet with Pryor's chief deputy for about 20 minutes. The rest remained outside, chanting ''Resign now! Resign now!''
Mahoney has accused Pryor of political grandstanding to aid his nomination to a federal appeals court. The nomination has been stalled by Senate Democrats who attacked the Republican Pryor for stands against abortion and in favor of states' rights.
Pryor has said it is his duty to uphold a federal court order to remove the monument.