MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama's Supreme Court judges, breaking ranks with their chief justice, ruled on Thursday that a Ten Commandments monument must be removed from the state court building to comply with a federal order, drawing protests from Christians who want to keep it there.

The eight associate members of the state Supreme Court took the step after Chief Justice Roy Moore defied a U.S. judge's order to remove the display by Wednesday in an escalating drama over the separation of church and state.

"The rule of law means that no person, including the chief justice of Alabama, is above the law," said Bill Pryor, Alabama's attorney general, who announced the justices' ruling at a news conference.

"When courts resolve disputes, we all must obey the orders of these courts even when we disagree with those orders," added Pryor, who plans to confer with the justices on Friday to discuss the monument's removal.

Moore, a Christian who was elected chief justice in late 2000, has fought a two-year battle to keep the two-ton granite monument bearing tablets of the Ten Commandments in the court building in Montgomery, Alabama's capital. Moore says he regards the commandments as a symbol of the Judeo-Christian foundation of U.S. law. He lost a last-ditch appeal to save the monument on Wednesday, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block a lower court's order to remove the display hours before the midnight deadline. It remains on display in the court building rotunda, Reuters reported. In their ruling, the associate justices directed the building manager to "take all steps necessary" to move the display "as soon as practicable."

Moore has won support among conservative Christians in Alabama and other Bible Belt states for championing public displays of the Ten Commandments and challenging those who oppose such efforts.

Hundreds of his supporters have held round-the-clock song and prayer vigils at the court building. On Thursday, many vowed to risk arrest to fight the removal.

"I'm staying till the bitter end and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep the monument here," said Joyce Collier of Montgomery outside the judicial building.

Gene Chapman, a preacher who walked 700 miles (1,120km) to Alabama from Austin, Texas, said he has not found any religion that opposes the Ten Commandments. "I fear this could come to bloodshed," he said. "This is how revolutions start."

Meanwhile, opponents stepped up their complaints against Moore, whom they accuse of using his office to impose his religious views on others.

"Justice Moore is a disgrace to the bench and ought to resign or be removed from office," said Richard Cohen, general counsel of the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Cohen said his group filed a complaint with the state Judicial Inquiry Commission, which investigates charges of misconduct against judges, stating that Moore's defiance of the order violated judicial ethics.

The granite monument has been on public display since July 2001, when Moore and a small band of supporters had it moved secretly into the judicial building.