(2002-08-22) -- An Alabama federal judge ruled tonight that a monument inscribed with the so-called 10 Commandments can stay in the state judicial building, however, the judge's order repeals the actual commandments.

"This case isn't about a big chunk of stone," wrote the unnamed federal judge. "The real problem is the commandments themselves. I hereby repeal all 10 of the commandments."

The judge wrote that the commandments are "antiquated, provincial and short-sighted. Our modern ideas of what constitutes murder, adultery, theft and lying are much more progressive."

"The monument can stay in the building," the judge wrote, "as a relic of a bygone era when our simple-minded ancestors believed this kind of thing -- a time when people still thought of things in terms of right and wrong."