DecalogicalA Ten Commandments slide show.

Notes From The Fray Editor:

First, readers should know that the Jurisprudence Forum is also hosting discussion on the product liability as a mode of gun control in response to this article. That article is featured on msn.com and has generated numerous responses, so you will have to go looking for Commandments discussions. The exchange between Publius and BernardYomtov below is in response to saipankathleen's thread beginning here.

Remarks From The Fray:

Still, if they send a purely secular message alongside the intrinsically religious message, does it make any sense to prohibit them? Please not I'm not suggesting it's not unconstitutional for a court to display them, since that's a question for otjher courts to answer, not for me. I'm concerned about what the answer ought to be.

By your account, one has to believe in God in the first place for the decalogue to be considered the word of God as transposed by Moses. So, if one does not believe in God and does not believe such a Moses lived, what's the problem?

-- Publius

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"So, if one does not believe in God and does not believe such a Moses lived, what's the problem?"

The problem is that one is then a citizen of a state that officially subscribes to religious beliefs that one disagrees with. This is not a recipe for happiness.

-- BernardYomtov

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All of this legal wrangling is like the denouement of battle scenes of Braveheart where the Scots are walking through the battle fields stabbing the dying English footsoldiers: in the legal and cultural arena, the liberals have won. Does anyone pay attention to those old sculptures anymore? Can anyone tell me all 10 of the commandments? Those carvings get far more attention when they're being fought over than when they're quietly sitting in parks and in front of country courthouses.

For example, the young man in the photograph of the Ten Commandments monument in Maryland doesn't really seem to be horribly offended by their presence -- more than likely, he tried to stir up a little trouble and it worked. That he has stood for interviews and photographs tends to indicate that he was pursuing this as a lark, as his personal stab at the Establishment as he saw it.

Face it -- it's a dead issue, pursued by people with either ulterior motives (fame, notoriety) or people who are deluded into believing these statues have persuasive power for Christianity.

-- Klug

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It's far from irrelevant when one considers that if the religious right gets their way with the Ten Commandments, it's not going to stop there. They're going to expect to get their way with the elimination of evolution from public school curriculums, mandated school prayer, government censorship of the media and a whole host of other agendas that those of us who consider the exclusionary clause of the Constitution important cringe at the thought of. I agree that displaying the Ten Commandments in and of themselves is of no great consequence, but the can of worms it opens up would be.

-- ThePragmatist2

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The answer, of course - based on Ms. Hodes's slideshow and analysis - is community standards. It appears the SCOTUS and most lower federal courts give individual communities wide latitude to demonstrate the role performed by public displays of the Ten Commandments in their towns. In fact, how a town feels about the symbolism of the Ten Commandments seems to be far more important than their actual depiction. The more the town sees them as an endorsement of religion and deity, the more likely the courts are to remove them. On the other hand, towns that regard them as works of art or general statements of good ethical values get to keep them.

It is rather like deciding what is pornographic. Store owners who make a big point out of the sexual nature of their products and who vow to stand in opposition to the uptight Puritanism of their towns tend to get busted. Those who keep the wares reasonably out of public view and see themselves primarily as filling an economic niche often seem to be left alone.

It is all just a question of attitude. The more the purveyors of a given morality - whether it be "if it feels good, do it" or "Thou shall not commit adultery" - attempt to portray their wares as having some serious, specific message, the more others within the community tend to object to it and the more likely the courts are to strike it down. Rather like the religious right regarding porn, civil libertarians everywhere primly tell us, "I cannot define a violation of the Establishment Clause but I know it when I see it."

Since civil libertarians often defend pornography as protected freedom of expression, we clearly need to combine the elements of both the Ten Commandments and porn to create public edifices that are agreeable to all. For example, the next time someone feels compelled to put a couple of stone tablets up in front of the County Courthouse, make sure they contain a centerfold. (Hey, look! Rachel is Miss December. Man, no wonder she found favor in Jacob's eyes over Leah. Woo-woo!) Maybe some nice letters to the editor too. (Dear God, I never thought something like THIS could happen to ME!) And if someone wants to depict Moses holding forth his stiff rod . . . well, that is one public erection that desperately needs to be gotten up and kept up. Move over Michelangelo's David - Moses and the Ten Commandments are now welcome for display on walls in public venues . . . as long as they are well hung.

-- The_Bell

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(12/19)

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