The separation of church and state is confirmed: 1. As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the U.S. Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of the world's law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view. it is Moses and he is holding the Ten Commandments! 2. As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door. 3. As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see the wall, right above where the Supreme Court judges sit, a display of the Ten Commandments! 4. There are Bible verses etched in stone all over the Federal Buildings and Monuments in Washington, D.C. 5. James Madison, the fourth president, known as "The Father of Our Constitution," made the following statement: "We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." 6. Patrick Henry, that patriot and Founding Father of our country said: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ." 7. Every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a paid preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777. 8. Fifty-two of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members of the established orthodox churches in the colonies. 9. The very first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, said: "Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rulers." NOT!
The pagan goddess Dike finds several representations at the US Supreme Court as well. Sooo...let's sacrifice a hecatomb of animal crackers for the blessing that is separation of church and state.
Now you've done it! I'm gonna have to do some real research here. If the Tablets of the Law can be displayed on the portico of the Supreme Court building, why could the Alabama Supreme Court not display the Chief Justice's two-ton monument? There's a legal line somewhere it appears. I'll let you know when I find it!
If the Supreme Court art really does come as news to you, it seems you didn't pay much attention when the brouhaha was at its peak. I'll be interested to see what technical legalities you come up with. From a common sense perspective it strikes me that the Supreme Court art is decorative, where as Moore's idol was prescriptive.
dcv, I like it, but how do you tell the difference? Side note...Samford University used to offer the only J.S.D. in Law and Religion program in the U.S. but they appear to have discontinued it. Seems ill-timed; such a program could be an important source of research for the nation in the near future. Somebody probably retired.
Furthermore, if I may add my own two cents, from what I understand when one walks through the U.N. building, one would see and read this quote, ...Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into prunning hooks; Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they train for war. Micah 4:3 I wonder which book the U.N. took this phrase from? There really must be something about the seperation of Church (Christianity) and State (Nations of the world) that they would except such a saying from such an out dated Religious book?! Rich Hartel A.A in Theological Studies, Trinity College of the Bible (present)
The 10 Commandments in the Supreme Court aren't just decorative. Moses can be seen holding them on the portico. Decorative? Maybe. But once inside, there is another display of the 10 Commandments behind the bench and the doors entering the court room. The meaning here is that the law, our law, is rooted in and taken from God's law. There are also countless religious inscriptions and symbols throughout congress and MANY of the monuments in DC. The Separation of Church and State was meant to keep government from mandating a particular religion (as was the case in England) by creating a state/church, or to prevent the possibility of the state actually requiring someone to attend church. It was never meant to prevent religious expression by the government or its officials. Everyone, including the government and its officials, were free to express religious belief. Hanging the 10 Commandments in the Supreme Court doesn't require anyone to practice a particular religion, it doesn't push religion on you at all. It's an expression. That's all. So was the 10 Commandments monument in Alabama...the difference is that people today (a minority of people today) want any and all references to religion, all of its undertones, all of its overtones, any recognition of a supreme being at all, removed from the public, perioed. That, my friends, is not what the constitution says, but it IS where the ACLU is attempting to take things. Pug
I'm pretty sure prescriptions such as "don't kill" and "don't steal" predate the ten commandments. Like Al Gore supposedly claiming to have invented the internet, it strikes me that some people think moses invented the idea that killing and stealing are wrong. The precriptions found in the decalogue aren't terribly original, and at least a couple of them are downright goofy, IMO. If our law is based on the ten commandments I must be missing the laws we have about keeping the sabbath holy (though I do remember the blue laws we had when I was a kid (apparently god doesn't want anyone buying dog food on sunday)), or our laws against graven images, etc. As it stands, I am free to worship as many gods as I please, while carving graven images, blaspheming and coveting my neighbor's wife. The 10 commandments are a symbol of law, as Dike is a symbol of Justice. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the same people who had a cow about Moore's idol being removed would have a royal conniption if some judge plunked down a 2000 pound block inscribed with allah is the one true god, etc.
I think many would be surprised at just how many county courthouses in the land have Judeo-Christian themes within them. On one wall of the court room of the Putnam County Superior Court, Greencastle, IN, is a mural depicting 1 Kings 3:25.
Chief Justice Moore's monument The case is Glassroth v. Moore, 335 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2003) The Supreme Court apparently denied certiorari, so it stayed in the Court of Appeals. The monument was not historical in nature but designed for "acknowledging the sovereignty of the Judeo-Christian God over both the state and the Church" It had no "valid secular purpose." It "fostered excessive government entanglement with religion." This is the test in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971). The Court of Appeals spent a good deal of time evaluating Chief Justice Moore's own statements and history is determining the purpose of the monument and almost as much time describing the monument and its location in the Rotunda of the Courthouse, where it was "unavoidable". Question: Suppose the removed monument was displayed in the hallway of the Court of Appeals together with a framed copy of the Court's decision as an example of the zeal with which the federal courts protect American religious freedom. Would that display also violate the separation of Church and State?
