So, the Supreme Court has decided that displays of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Apparently, there is grave risk that pre-rabbinic Judaism is about to become the established religion of the United States. The ruling, however, does not affect the United States Supreme Court, which will continue to display the frieze of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments as prominently as before. Do you think that the five Justices in the majority actually take themselves seriously?
I just got two dispositive motions dropped onto the pile of work already on my desk so please discuss amongst yourselves.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that frieze at the SCotUS hall in context with the history of lawgiving throughout western history? I think there’s a piece of art in the same place where it shows the goddess Athena advising our founding fathers.
yes, i am also fairly certain that the friezes/murals/whatever(ok sue me, never took art history) is multi-cultural and displays the legal foundations from numerous religions/civilizations.
I would certainly agree that the Supreme Court freize (how I heard it described this morning and I claim no special expertise on whether the term is artistically correct) does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. What I find absurd is that a majority of the Supreme Court Justices actually seem to believe that whether a display of the Ten Commandments passes Constitutional muster depends upon its artistic context. No state in the Union is making pre-rabbinic Judaism into an established state religion, and the Justices should be able to figure this out if they are being at all faithful to their oaths of office.
It’s Judeo-Christian based, as the 10 Commandments are not purely a Christian symbol. They are being put up in almost, if not all cases, by Christian groups; but the symbol has clearly Jewish roots.
Asked in honesty: Anyone ever heard of a Jewish organization claiming bias or persecution based on the 10 Commandments being removed from government property?
Because strict adherence only to the Ten Commandments would be adherence to pre-rabbinic Judaism while trying to follow the Ten Commandments along other religious texts can be a sign that you are an Orthodox Jew, a Christian, a Muslim, or any number of variations on the above themes.
i can say in all honesty that i would be very skeptical of whether i could get a fair shake in certain cases if i walked into a courthouse that had a large monument only to the ten commandments. in my mind, there is most definitely a message being sent as to the views of a state run office that displays the 10 commandments prominently in terms of religious leanings.
An established national religion is one that you must belong to in order to vote, own property, hold a commission in the military, sit on a jury and serve as an elected representative in government. You know, like the kind of established national religion that existed in say the 17th and 18th century in Great Britain. Among others, the Puritans and Quakers came to America because they were prevented from fully participating in civic life because they did not belong to the Church of England. When the Constitution was passed and the First Amendment ratified, you were not supposed to be able to serve as an officer in the British Army or Navy if you were a Roman Catholic. Even in the 19th century, had Disraeli not converted, he never would have been Prime Minister.
If you actually think you aren’t going to be treated fairly because you are an atheist, then you simply don’t understand the American judicial system. Now, if you think that you aren’t treated fairly solely on the basis of things like whether the fact that your opposing party has an attorney is good friends with the judge, then you may be onto something depending upon the judge, But, whether you abide by the Ten Commandments or not, including the one barring perjury, won’t affect how your case is resolved.
that’s a ridiculously narrow view of an established religion.
i understand the american judicial system plenty well. it’s not about me being an atheist or wiccan or muslim. it’s about the views of the judge on certain subject matter. i also understand that try as judges might, bias can’t help but enter into their decision making process. furthermore, i also understand that a conspicious display of the 10 commandments is advertising something, and it’s not religious neutrality. nor is it(if displayed entirely on its own) an a-religious testament to the foundations of the american legal system.
The thing that cracks me up wheever this issue arises is the riduculous notion that the 10 Commandments are the basis for our legal system. In the Decalogue you have stuff like “do not kill”, “do no steal” etc… that are found in every single culture on Earth, and things like “no other Gods”, “Observe the Sabbath”, “dont covet” etc. which are not part of our legal system at all.
If you want to acknowledge a document that has had a real influence on our legal system, you’d do much better with the Magna Carta for instance.
If you actually think you aren’t going to be treated fairly because you are an atheist, then you simply don’t understand the American judicial system. Now, if you think that you aren’t treated fairly solely on the basis of things like whether the fact that your opposing party has an attorney is good friends with the judge, then you may be onto something depending upon the judge, But, whether you abide by the Ten Commandments or not, including the one barring perjury, won’t affect how your case is resolved.
Do you think Judge Roy Moore treated everyone the same, independent of whether they were willing to swear on a bible?
I really don’t care much about Judge Moore, who was removed from office for judicial misconduct. Moreover, he was an appellate court judge, and their decisions rarely depend upon their perceptions as to the credibility of witnesses. But, don’t you find the testimony of someone willing to swear or affirm in some fashion that their testimony is true more credible than someone that will not do so in any manner at all?
**What do you find offensive about the 10 commandments? **
That’s a good question and my guess, for those who are offended, is because they’re in the bible.
If you mean that those are offended because they are from a religious text, you might be right. If you guessed that it’s because that religious text happens to be the bible, you would be wrong.
I really don’t care much about Judge Moore, who was removed from office for judicial misconduct. Moreover, he was an appellate court judge, and their decisions rarely depend upon their perceptions as to the credibility of witnesses. But, don’t you find the testimony of someone willing to swear or affirm in some fashion that their testimony is true more credible than someone that will not do so in any manner at all?
If faced with the prospect of swearing on a bible in a court of law, I’d be quite tempted to refuse to do so (but discretion being the better part of valor, and being aware of the potential biases of those in attendance, I might not). And I happen to be honest to a fault. I’d be perfectly happy to say “I do” to the “Do you swear…and nothing but the truth”, if it ended there.