On 6/19/2000 the Supreme Court ruled that student-led prayers in public schools are unconstitutional.  The 6-3 ruling was specifically directed at a Santa Fe, Texas school board's policy of allowing a student majority vote determine whether or not to have student led prayers at school functions.  The law suit was initiated by the parents of two students who were Mormon and Catholic.  The town of Santa Fe is a small, mostly Baptist community.  By the time the case reached the Supreme Court, the school board was being legally represented by the Christian Coalition.

School prayer was originally banned from public schools by the Supreme Court in 1962.  In 1992 the court also barred clergy from delivering religious messages at public school graduation ceremonies with 5-4 vote.

God bless the United States Supreme Court.

Our Schools Are Safe Again! - 2.18.2000

Fueled by the tragic shootings at Columbine High School, Colorado Senator John Andrews (R) has introduced the "Moral Heritage Act," which will require the posting of the Ten Commandments in all Colorado public school classrooms.

"Our argument is that an educated young person cannot be ignorant of the fact that this country was founded on the principles embodied by the Ten Commandments," he told Religion Today news service. "This has legitimate secular and educational purposes."

Colorado attorney general, Ken Salazar, disagrees.  He says the bill is "indefensible in a court of law" and would require the taxpayers of Colorado to finance a costly legal battle.  This has prompted Senator Andrews to introduce an amendment to the Moral Heritage Act making the posting of the commandments "permitted" rather than "required."  He said this change would make the law "even MORE constitutional."

Georgia congressman, Bob Barr (R), supports the Colorado Senator and went as far to say that the Columbine High School killings would not have happened if the Ten Commandments had been posted in classrooms there. Georgia State Representative Judy Poag (D) has introduced a bill similar to Colorado's, but with an extra provision that makes posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom a requirement to receive state funds. Poag has also introduced a bill to allow for student initiated spoken prayer in the classroom. Technically, in this case, the prayer is not endorsed by the school and could skirt around previous court decisions banning school prayer. (On a personal note, I hope there are some vocal Muslims or Hindus in Georgia who want to lead class prayers. Or how about a reading from the Book of Mormon, Dianetics or the Satanic Bible? I suspect that the conservative Christian reaction to such events would be very insightful.)

Indiana's State Senate voted their approval of a bill that would require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in schools and government offices along with other historical documents. The Senate in South Dakota passed a bill permitting teachers to display any type of religious documents in the classroom. Legislators in Virginia passed a measure requiring public schools to observe a "moment of silence." Other states considering a legislative mandate for posting the Ten Commandments are Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma.

The Supreme Court has already ruled against the posting of the Ten Commandments in 1980. In the case Stone versus Graham, with a 5-4 decision, they struck down a Kentucky law that required the commandments to be posted in public schools. They found that "the preeminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on school room walls is plainly religious in nature," and therefore violates the First Amendment. Backed by that ruling, the ACLU has filed a suit against three counties in Kentucky after the commandments were publicly displayed in schools there.

There seems to be a misconception by many politicians that our country was founded on Christianity. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin were all Deists, a belief system based solely on evidence from the physical world. Deists believed that a God was necessary to explain the origin of the universe, but the lack of evidence for a God during our lives indicates that He abandoned His creation, never to exert any influence on it. Deists did not believe in any sort of supernatural revelation. Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography, says that while he thought the code of behavior Jesus introduced should be heralded, he doubted his divinity. On religious freedom, Thomas Jefferson said, "The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and engrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man." Historians estimate that only 10 - 20% of the population during colonial times belonged to any Church.

"In God we trust" wasn't added to our coins until 1864 when congress passed the Coinage Act, which designated that the phrase be put on coins "when and where sufficient space in the balance of the design" would permit it.  The "under God" reference in the pledge of allegiance wasn't added until 1954, during the height of the cold war.  

If the objective of conservative politicians is really to provide a better moral foundation for children, it is disappointing that posting the Ten Commandments is the best method they could think of to accomplish this. When did the Ten Commandments become the ultimate resource for modern ethics? Do children really need a poster to remind them that killing people is wrong? More likely, the children who kill do so precisely because it is wrong. How does the Ten Commandments help children deal with the issues they face everyday, like peer pressure, drug abuse and their emerging sexuality?

The first four commandments-- no other Gods but Me, no graven images, don't take the name of the Lord your God in vain, and keep holy the Sabbath-- are religious in nature and send the wrong message about the religious freedoms that make America a great country.

Absolutes such as, "Thou shall not bear false witness" and "Thou shall not kill," face many contradictions. Is it okay to lie if it will save a life? Should students avoid careers in law enforcement and the military because they may be forced to violate the 6th commandment? It is interesting that the Ten Commandments bills are supported by political conservatives, typically the same people who support the death penalty. Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, for example, supports both the posting of the Ten Commandments and capital punishment.

A more aggressive approach to teaching children about morality, and one that doesn't alienate all of the non-Christians, would be to actually dedicate a day to studying the philosophy of ethics. Typically, students aren't introduced to philosophy until college, but perhaps this is a mistake. Kant's Categorical Imperative and John Stuart Mills' Utilitarianism are straightforward enough concepts for any high school student to grasp and provide simple rules of thumb for making ethical decisions. Discussions about each methods pros and cons would provide students with a better understanding of what constitutes ethical behavior and a better background for handling complicated moral dilemmas. The Ten Commandments, on the other hand, rather than being based on logic that can be applied to other situations, are based solely on the fact that God says so.

The contradictions regarding the Ten Commandments begin in the Bible, shortly after God gives them to Moses.  When Moses descends Mount Sinai with the stone tablets to find his people worshiping the a statue of a calf they made of gold, he is angry and throws the tablets, breaking them.  Exodus 32: 26-29 describes what happens next.

So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, "Whoever is for the LORD, come to me." And all the Levites rallied to him. Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: `Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.'" The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died.

 

Then Moses said, "You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day."

Moses destroyed this first set of commandments before sharing them with the people, but he had seen them and knew the command, "Thou shall not kill."  And the people who were slaughtered, the ones who had been worshipping the calf and were not for the Lord, had not even received the "Thou shall not have any graven images," command yet.

C.A.