Years After Ten Commandments Fight, Ex-Justice Plans Return

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — On the campaign trail, Roy Moore wears a metal pin of a cross on his suit jackets, praises “almighty God” and refers to the United States as a “Christian nation.”

But there is one demonstration of his faith that Mr. Moore, the Republican nominee for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, promises not to make.

“No, I won’t bring back the Ten Commandments,” he said. “Not again.”

It has been nearly a decade since Mr. Moore, then chief justice, became a focus in the national debate over religious liberty by defying a federal order to remove a 5,000-pound granite statue of the holy tablets from his Montgomery courthouse. He lost the fight and was removed from the bench by a state ethics panel in 2003.

But Mr. Moore, 65, is on the verge of a political comeback. In an upset two weeks ago, he won the Republican nomination without a runoff, against two far better financed opponents, including the current chief justice....