Back in late 2003, I went down several times to watch the antics and shenanigans at the Ten Commandments protests that centered on the removal of Roy Moore’s 5,280-pound monument from Alabama’s Heflin-Torbert Judicial Building. The lackluster protests that occurred there and at the nearby Frank M. Johnson, Jr. Federal Courthouse were only made interesting by the bizarre assemblage of characters. These pictures were taken in September 2003. They’re my Throwback Thursday offerings to you.

This truck was one of the highlights. It repeatedly circled the block around the federal courthouse where Judge Myron Thompson was hearing the case. Thompson ruled against Alabama’s Chief Justice, who then defied the court order and was removed from office. His monument was soon removed from the Judicial Building, too.

The other image I got when I was standing behind some of the protestors outside the federal courthouse. I had to get close to get this shot of their signs. The one of the left is fairly innocuous. The one on the right, however, is more foreboding. At the bottom, after a list of people the man would like to see impeached, it reads: ACLU DROP DEAD PS 55:15. If you go to the King James version of the Bible and find Psalms 55:15, you’ll find this: “Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.” (Additionally, though you can’t really see her from this angle, the woman standing with the two men was draped in a Confederate flag. A hint of her red flag can be seen beside the man on the left.)