Perhaps somebody can explain to us how putting up stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments in an Alabama courthouse, or anywhere else, is "making a law." If not, perhaps someone can point to the specific statute which has been violated. Lastly, shall we consider the long invisible portion of the 1st? We quote: "... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... " Can the judges in a state deny such expression to a fellow judge in that state? From the 14th Amendment: No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. You say, "The judge may have paid for the tablet monument out of his own pocket, but in defiance of the separation of church and state, it was sitting on a floor paid for by tax dollars. Except as already described above, in the U.S. Constitution there is no such thing as "separation of church and state." All the Constitution says is that congress shall not make a law which establishes a religion. A monument, no matter who pays for it, no matter where it is, cannot force people to follow a particular religion. Nor, does it establish a state religion -- that is, give some kind of legal standing to a particular faith or sect.. It merely refers to a particular religion. Referring to is not establishing. People came to America from England and Europe to get away from religious persecution by official state churches. Government churches. When the founding fathers wrote the Constitution, they proscribed the creation of an official state church. That is all they proscribed, nothing more. The "free exercise" portion of the 1st Amendment is there to make sure that no other limitations would obtain. This "separation of church and state" idea is, therefore, a complete fraud. The entire constitution, including the original Bill of Rights, has as its most basic premise the idea that government isn't there to provide fundamental individual human rights, but rather to protect them. Those most basic of rights exist outside of, beyond and prior to any government. They are unalienable, and come from their (all citizen's) creator. In a word, God. The God of the Jews, the Moslems, the Christians and a number of other faiths. (If you worship trees, feel free to imagine that they gave you your inalienable rights. But, if your tree religion forces you to demand the removal of a symbol related to those faiths listed above, then to provide equal justice for all we must remove all trees from public property. Besides removing the trees from all the courthouse lawns in every city, and pulling them out by the roots from every state, county and city park, that would include clearcutting every square foot of every national park in America.) Shall we have reason and sanity in this country for a change? Let's apply "community standards," which is already a matter of established law The decision as to whether or not Roy Moore's monument should be there can with this premise be strictly a local matter. As long as the community in general approves of its presence, it should remain. It if makes some people uncomfortable, so be it. There is no constitutional right to be protected from being uncomfortable. If you get a traffic ticket in Bombay, and must go to a court which displays a statue of Shiva, the government of India has no obligation to remove that statue to make you feel comfortable. So it should be, here. It has been said by a conservative we admire, Rush Limbaugh, that the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions, even if they are wrong, are nevertheless the law of the land, and unless we wish to destroy the rule of law in America, and invite chaos, we must while such decisions are in force, obey them. His example is a killer denying the opinion of a court as to his conviction. If Judge Moore disobeys court rulings, so can the killer. Rush discounts the fact that the judge is disobeying an interpretation of law, but the killer is disobeying a conviction for the commission of a felony -- a crime against another person, and which without justifiable cause took from that person the most valuable property he had, his life. But, civil disobediance to Rush is civil disobediance. One size fits all. There is, he clearly suggests, either capitulation or revolution, and that is all. He is wrong. Our question to Mr. Limbaugh is: If the U.S. Supreme Court, which is presently on quite a liberal run, made it legal for an adult to have sex with a ten year old child, would he support the "right" of people to do so until such time as the court once more changed its mind? Or, do we visualize him taking up arms and beginning to shoot people? It is clear from Rush's statements on the topic that he believes the methodology of the Alabama judge with respect to the tablets of the Ten Commandments, civil disobedience, is wrong. In the opinion of this magazine, capitulation or revolution are not the only two choices. A previously little-known judge in Alabama, like a black preacher before him, is doing the right thing by utilizing the third option: civil disobediance. Hanz Zeiger, who writes for this magazine, has produced a wonderful essay on this subject for another website. To read it, click here. (LL) |
