As reported by the Montgomery Advertiser,
Alabama House approves Ten Commandments bill:
The Ten Commandments could be displayed in
Alabama public schools and state government buildings if mixed with
historical and education documents, under a proposed constitutional
amendment approved Thursday by the Alabama House of Representatives.
Lawmakers
voted 77-19 in favor of the measure, which now moves to the Alabama
Senate. Voters must also approve the amendment for it to become law.
"This
country was founded on godly principles. ... That's our roots," said
bill sponsor Rep. DuWayne Bridges, R-Valley. "We have a right to go back
to what our roots are."
Bridges said people would be
free to worship how they choose and that the displays would not promote a
particular religious view. Opponents predicted the displays would
prompt lawsuits and be looked on by the courts as illegal attempts to
establish a preferred religion in Alabama.
The first question that comes to mind, which version of the Decalogue are you referring? I may sound pedantic, but consider this. There are three versions of the Ten Commandments in the Bible: Exodus 20:2-17 (generally found within Judaism and Protestant sects), Exodus 34:12-26 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21 (generally associated with Catholicism and the Lutheran Church). We also have the Muslim version found scattered throughout the Qur'an. So which denomination should lead the crusade?
A second point, as highlighted by a
Christian Post interview with Dan Barker of FFRF concerning this recent event:
Barker argued that each of the first four Commandments violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "Thou shalt have no god before me," the atheist quoted. "Our government can't tell anyone whom to worship." In his view, having the government publicly support the Ten Commandments amounts to declaring Christianity as the state religion.
"Thou shalt not make any graven image," Baker said, quoting the Second Commandment. He argued that this Commandment amounts to "telling us what kind of artwork we can make," and that it is "anti-freedom." The Third Commandment, "thou shalt not take God's name in vain," violates free speech, according to the FFRF co-president. And the Fourth, honoring the Sabbath Day, is also egregious: "Our government has no basis to tell us what day to worship," Baker declared.
Baker admitted that the remaining six Commandments "have some value," but he argued that only three — the prohibitions against stealing, murder, and perjury — have any basis in American law. "The Ten Commandments are meaningful to some people, but they are not the basis of American freedoms," the atheist declared.
Third, the
SCOTUS has spoken quite firmly on the issue in the past, something the Reich seems to ignore. In a 5-to-4 decision (Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 - 1980), the SCOTUS ruled that a Kentucky law violated the first part of the test established in Lemon v. Kurtzman (aka the Lemon Test) and thus violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The Court found that the requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted "had no secular legislative purpose" and was "plainly religious in nature." The Court noted that the Commandments did not confine themselves to arguably secular matters (such as murder, stealing, etc.), but rather concerned matters such as the worship of God and the observance of the Sabbath Day.
“The preeminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature. The Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and no legislative recitation of a supposed secular purpose can blind us to that fact. The Commandments do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, such as honoring one's parents, killing or murder, [449 U.S. 39, 42] adultery, stealing, false witness, and covetousness. See Exodus 20:12-17; Deuteronomy 5:16-21. Rather, the first part of the Commandments concerns the religious duties of believers: worshipping the Lord God alone, avoiding idolatry, not using the Lord's name in vain, and observing the Sabbath Day. See Exodus 20:1-11; Deuteronomy 5:6-15.
[,,,]
It does not matter that the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are financed by voluntary private contributions, for the mere posting of the copies under the auspices of the legislature provides the "official support of the State . . . Government" that the Establishment Clause prohibits. 374 U.S., at 222 ; see Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 431 (1962). 4 Nor is it significant that the Bible verses involved in this case are merely posted on the wall, rather than read aloud as in Schempp and Engel, for "it is no defense to urge that the religious practices here may be relatively minor encroachments on the First Amendment." Abington School District v. Schempp, supra, at 225. We conclude that Ky. Rev. [449 U.S. 39, 43] Stat. 158.178 (1980) violates the first part of the Lemon v. Kurtzman test, and thus the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.
As a caveat, it is important to note that Barker mentions the 5-4 ruling of SCOTUS in Van Orden vs. Perry (2005). In this instance, the Court ruled the monument conveyed
both a religious and secular message in combination with the other monuments on the site. Without getting into the nitty-gritty details, there are instances where this mixing of messages has been allowed,
but as Barker pointed out, "the purpose [in Alabama] is clearly religious."
After reading the Ten Commandments on the House floor, Rep. Richard
Baughn, R-Lynn, said, "I don't know why anybody would disagree with
these ten."
"We are the greatest nation on the Earth because God's hand of blessing has been on us," Baughn said.
Fourth, I am not sure what "roots" Bridges is referring to as it is obvious that history is not this man's strong suit. The only document that matters in this country is the Constitution, a legal document devoid of any reference to God, Jesus and/or Christianity. (Why do you think the religionists avoid it like the plague and cite the Declaration of Independence instead? Why do you think the
Convention of States bullshit is becoming popular in the Reich? They want to re-write the Constitution as a means to support their vision of a theocratic nation.) All one has to do is look at the preamble which states, "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union,,,." The Founders knew what they were doing. This was not an act of omission, but a deliberate means to keep government separate from religion. "[T]he people" that is where the US government derives its power, not God; and definitely not the evangelical Christian God envisioned by the Reich.
How do I know this?
History tells me.
We have John Leland who opined in 1790, “The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever,,,." In 1797 the Treaty of Tripoli, approved by the Senate of the United States and signed by President John Adams states, "The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian Religion.” Thomas Jefferson in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association called for a "wall of separation between church and State." And James Madison who in the early 1800s continued the understanding of a secular government, " Strongly guarded...is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States."
These statements, and the many more like them, clearly show that our
Founders and early religious leaders understood that religion needed to
be separated from Government. Taking that one step further (or back), history also teaches us that the writers of the Constitution created an independent government not only out of Enlightenment thinking but also borrowed from the ancient Greeks, Romans and Great Britain.
Great Britain? But isn't Britain's common law, from which many precepts of the Constitution derive, founded on Christian principles making the the Constitution a Christian document? What about the various Supreme Court Justices proclaiming that Christianity came as part of the laws of England, and therefore from its common law heritage?
According to the mighty words of Thomas Jefferson, we did in fact inherit common law from Great Britain. Which as explained by
Jefferson in his 1814 letter to Thomas Cooper was derived from pre-Christian Saxons rather than from Biblical scripture:
For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons, on their settlement in England, and altered, from time to time, by proper legislative authority, from that, to the date of the Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or lex scripta. This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century; but Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first Christian King of the Heptarchy, having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. If it ever, therefore, was adopted into the common law, it must have been between the introduction of Christianity and the date of the Magna Charta. But of the laws of this period, we have a tolerable collection, by Lambard and Wilkins; probably not perfect, but neither very defective; and if any one chooses to build a doctrine on any law of that period, supposed to have been lost, it is incumbent on him to prove it to have existed, and what were its contents. These were so far alterations of the common law, and became themselves a part of it; but none of these adopt Christianity as a part of the common law. If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons, to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians; and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are able to find among them no such act of adoption; we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.
I won't be so bold as to say that it is obvious that the Ten Commandments have nothing to do with Constitutional law. I have been simplistic in my overview. But if one spends the time to look into such claims made by Bridges and his ilk, you will reach the same conclusion. What I will say without hesitation, it is obvious that those who promote the Ten Commandments as historical or foundational to our nation and government do it for religious reasons only, which contradicts our secular Constitution.
Instead of placing the Ten Commandments in State courthouses and schools why not place a more appropriate monument such as a plaque with the actual words of the Constitution itself?
Or better yet, make everyone sit and watch this famous clip from George Carlin:
