|
I was beginning to wonder what it would take, but it may
just be that the Ten Commandments monument installed in Alabama’s
Supreme Court has cracked the dam. There is a lot behind that dam,
and if it ever bursts it will bring a social revolt that makes the
1960s look about as earth shattering as a burp at a tea party.
It started quietly enough in 1995 when Roy Moore, then a
circuit judge in Etowah County, Alabama, hung in his courtroom a
wooden plaque he had carved years earlier, listing the Ten
Commandments. The small sign didn’t escape the ferret eye of the
American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit. The case was
dismissed, but a new suit was brought by the state of Alabama for
the purpose of setting a legal precedent.
Judge Charles Price initially ruled the plaque legal,
then reversed himself under pressure and ordered it removed.
Ironically, Price was awarded a Profile in Courage Award by the John
F. Kennedy Library Foundation for his flip-flop. The Alabama
Supreme Court eventually allowed the plaque to stay, and Moore was
later elected its Chief Justice.
Moore promptly plunked a two-ton granite version of the
Ten Commandments in the Supreme Court building, sparking a legal
battle that led to the monument’s court-ordered exodus from public
view last month. Hundreds came from around the nation to protest
the decision, and the resulting story shoved even Iraq and Arnold to
the bottom of the front page.
Why all the fuss over a piece of wood and a hunk of
stone? I know the Bible reasonably well, well enough to say with
certainty there is no requirement to post the Ten
Commandments in courthouses or any other public place. I also know
the Constitution doesn’t say you can’t; our founding document’s only
reference to religion states “Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof ….” It doesn’t take a law degree to figure out that
planting a monument doesn’t establish a religion.
No, it takes a law degree to argue that it does, and
lawyers (including judges) have successfully defied the logic and
wording of the First Amendment for decades, accomplishing things
that never could have been done with legislation. Well-intentioned
opponents, for the most part, have stood by shaking their noggins
like so many plastic bobble heads, tsk tsking away one chunk of our
culture after another. Now, just maybe, their aggravation has
reached the breaking point.
The pent up frustration stems from more than
Constitutional abuses or issues thought of as primarily religious,
touching every social norm once considered simple common decency.
After the University of Minnesota published a how-to guide and
defense of child molesters titled “Harmful to Minors: The Perils of
Protecting Children from Sex,” the Los Angeles Times reacted by
awarding the author a prestigious Book Prize while the American
Psychiatric Association considered a proposal to remove pedophilia
from its list of mental disorders.
Scientists conduct experiments on human embryos that
would have earned Nazi doctors life in prison or death sentences.
Abortions outnumber live births in some areas. One of the hottest
shows on television glorifies homosexual fashion sense, and the rest
of TV programming is so soaked with sex and blood there is little
worth watching no matter how many gazillion channels one can get.
I’m almost afraid to watch “Antiques Roadshow” for fear it will get
on the bandwagon. When Penthouse magazine files for bankruptcy
claiming it can’t keep up with the lewdness in society at large, as
it did last month, we are nearing rock bottom.
Something has to snap; perhaps it will start in
Alabama. As offensive as the Ten Commandments or any hint of a
moral code has become, it would be poetic.
|
