The Court and Religion
March 2, 2005EDITORIALS
The Court and Religion
utting up displays of the Ten Commandments in government buildings has become a popular way to test the limits of the First Amendment. The displays' backers, who will argue their case before the Supreme Court today, say they are not challenging the separation of church and state, just acknowledging God's authority in a way the founding fathers would have appreciated. They're wrong, and the court should order the displays removed.
The cases involve Texas, where there has been a six-foot-tall Ten Commandments monument between the Capitol and the State Supreme Court since 1961, and Kentucky, where McCreary and Pulaski Counties posted the Ten Commandments in their county courthouses in 1999. In both cases, the backers of the Ten Commandments' displays are arguing that any religious message they may send is diluted by their surroundings. After the American Civil Liberties Union sued, the Kentucky counties also posted other documents, like the Declaration of Independence and the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Texas argues that secular monuments are also on the Capitol grounds. But those monuments are all a significant distance away from the Ten Commandments monument, which is topped by the phrase "I am the Lord thy God" in large letters.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits Congress from making laws "respecting an establishment of religion," and the Supreme Court has long held that the same rule must be applied to the states. The Ten Commandments represent specifically Judeo-Christian beliefs. Even within the Judeo-Christian tradition, there are significantly different versions of the commandments. Kentucky and Texas have chosen to display the Protestant Ten Commandments, rather than the Catholic or Jewish versions.
Accepting the separation of church and state does not mean that all references to religion must be excised from public life. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the government can display a religious symbol, provided it is part of a clearly secular display. The courtroom in which the Ten Commandments case will be argued has an image of Moses' accepting the tablets as part of a montage of lawgivers throughout history. But the Kentucky and Texas displays fall far short of that standard.
Adding the national anthem to the Kentucky displays or pointing to other statues in the distance in Texas cannot undo the displays' clear motivation: tying the legal system to Protestantism. The wall between church and state dates proudly to the earliest days of the republic. The founders may not have anticipated a country with many Hindu and Buddhist Americans, but they were wise enough to write a document that protects their rights. Our increasingly diverse nation must not appear to prefer some religions, and some citizens, over others.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/opinion/02wed1.html?th
The Court and Religion
utting up displays of the Ten Commandments in government buildings has become a popular way to test the limits of the First Amendment. The displays' backers, who will argue their case before the Supreme Court today, say they are not challenging the separation of church and state, just acknowledging God's authority in a way the founding fathers would have appreciated. They're wrong, and the court should order the displays removed.
The cases involve Texas, where there has been a six-foot-tall Ten Commandments monument between the Capitol and the State Supreme Court since 1961, and Kentucky, where McCreary and Pulaski Counties posted the Ten Commandments in their county courthouses in 1999. In both cases, the backers of the Ten Commandments' displays are arguing that any religious message they may send is diluted by their surroundings. After the American Civil Liberties Union sued, the Kentucky counties also posted other documents, like the Declaration of Independence and the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Texas argues that secular monuments are also on the Capitol grounds. But those monuments are all a significant distance away from the Ten Commandments monument, which is topped by the phrase "I am the Lord thy God" in large letters.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits Congress from making laws "respecting an establishment of religion," and the Supreme Court has long held that the same rule must be applied to the states. The Ten Commandments represent specifically Judeo-Christian beliefs. Even within the Judeo-Christian tradition, there are significantly different versions of the commandments. Kentucky and Texas have chosen to display the Protestant Ten Commandments, rather than the Catholic or Jewish versions.
Accepting the separation of church and state does not mean that all references to religion must be excised from public life. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the government can display a religious symbol, provided it is part of a clearly secular display. The courtroom in which the Ten Commandments case will be argued has an image of Moses' accepting the tablets as part of a montage of lawgivers throughout history. But the Kentucky and Texas displays fall far short of that standard.
Adding the national anthem to the Kentucky displays or pointing to other statues in the distance in Texas cannot undo the displays' clear motivation: tying the legal system to Protestantism. The wall between church and state dates proudly to the earliest days of the republic. The founders may not have anticipated a country with many Hindu and Buddhist Americans, but they were wise enough to write a document that protects their rights. Our increasingly diverse nation must not appear to prefer some religions, and some citizens, over others.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/opinion/02wed1.html?th
posted by stebaldos at 4:36 PM
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