How does a monument impose things on you? THAT is the issue as I see it. Is the judge a nutball and possibly a fanatic? Sure - I'd go with that, but to say a monument has the "promotional" / "endorsement" power that people are saying it does is hogwash. To each their own though.
If you want to argue that a moument doesn't impose anything on anyone, then by the same reasoning a stanist who is running your kids school has the right to install a big monument to satan in the front lobby that says "Satan is our lord" in big letters on it. And by your same reasoning, this doesn't 'impose' anything on the kids.
You think that 'I am the LORD your God. You shall have no other gods before Me.' isn't an endorsement of religion?? I bet that If I had a moument installed that said "There is NO god." people would be up in arms, even though I haven't referred to any specific god, and therefore according to Bill O'Rielly my monument is 'religously neutral'
Posting any sort of religious documents in any form counts as imposing them on other people. If this judge is allowed to post whatever he wants to in a state owned court, then by the same logic a school principal has the right to plaster porn all over the school that he runs, or have the koran engraved onto the walls of the school.
These are being imposed since people are basically REQUIRED to go to these buildings at some point. If you are involved in a court case that gets appealed to the alabama supremem court, you HAVE to go to the building and see whatever crap the judge has put up. If you cant afford to get your kids out of public school, they will be forced to see anything that is put up there.
This is also fundamentally unfair becuase people seem to think that this judge should have some kind of special right to do whatever the hell he wants. If I walk into a federal building and put up a mounment to satan, the thing will be removed immediately. What the hell gives this judge a right to sneak in a moument that he never had approved by anyone? The chief justice of a state supreme court is not above the law, nor does he have any special rights.
If you need any further proof of that, look at Florida. The florida supreme court didn't ignore the federal supreme court when they ordered that the recount be halted. If they had behaved as judge moore has, the conservatives would have rioted. But now that a judge is behaving in the same manner, but in support of something they like, they no longer have a problem with it.
Originally posted by: Trezza
I don't see this as being a black and white issue. If you take the 10 c's out of their biblical text, they are all common beliefs that 90% of the world would agree with. The religious commandments don't specify which god they reference or which day is the sabbath (holy day). The only religion that could be offended would be any polythiestic religion. The 10 c's don't have the same impact as a statue of jesus on the cross.
If said statue is so offensive because of its religious backround then why do we still swear on a bible, or other text when giving testimony.
On the O'Reilly factor today he said something to the effect of "The US Founders wanted a Gov't free of church ties but a society where people believed that religon was the reason to behave not man made laws."
That raises a question of is this an example of the gov't or individual member of that gov't having clouding ties to a church?
I believe from, what he has stated in the news that he is deeply tied to the church in such a manner that he is bound to it in every aspect of his life, thus creating a barrier for him to be a good judge in a multicultural america.[/i]
This is utter nonsense. The 10 commandments are NOT agreed on by 90% of the worlds population. They are DISTINCTLY judeo/christian rules, and nearly ALL other major religions would disagree strongly with them. Here are a few of the commandments:
"And God spoke all these words, saying: 'I am the LORD your God?
ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
According to the second commandment, BUDDHISM and HINDUISM are ILLEGAL. There are well over a billion hindus living in India today, as well as another billion chinese that would not agree with the 10 commandments at all. Thats already 1/3 of the world's population in just two countries. Additionally, jews and christians cant even agree what day the sabbath IS. There is no way in hell that any large majority of the people would agree with all of the commandments, and even if they did, that has no legal relevance at all. You still have no right to impose any religious text on anyone else.
To top it off, many versions of the 10 commandments NAME THE GOD THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. Here is another version of the first commandment:
1) I am Yahweh your god who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.
There is no way in HELL that is 'neutral' as to which god they are talking about. This is clearly the jewish god that led the israelites from egypt. Hell, even the arabs wouldn't agree with this version of the commandments, so there goes another few billion people.
As for O'Rielly, you'd learn a lot more watching a blank screen for an hour. None of his arguments even made the slightest bit of sense. He kept rambling on about how the commandments arent 'specific' about what religion they endorse, and are therefore ok. There is no basis for this anywhere, and its not even true. As mentioned above, the commandments are quite specific in naming Yahweh as the god in many versions, and the fact that they come from the old testament should give everyone a BIG CLUE. The commandments also claim that any polytheistic religion or any monotheistic religion that does not believe in Yahweh is forbidden. How the hell is that neutral?
By the same reasoning, I could have a moument that says "Yahweh and Allah don't exist" and because it doesn't specifically name ONE religion, it is now magically religously neutral and I can put it up anywhere.
His comment about the founders wanting god in public life is completely irrelivent. God IS in public life, there are churches everywhere. The founders didnt have anything against god, they just wanted god out of the governemnt, which is what this is all about. Its perfectly fine with me if anyone wants to post the commandments on their front lawn or in front of a church, but not in a federal courthouse that is supposed to uphold the laws of this country, and not those of the old testament.
His historical arguments are useless anyway. Conservatives love to talk about what the founding fathers wanted, but only when it suits them. The never try to argue that we should return to slavery simply because thats the way the founders wanted it, or that women should loose their right to vote. I have also heard some morons claim that we should leave god in the pledge because thats the way the 'founders' wanted it, when in fact CONGRESS added god to the pledge in the first half of the 20th century! If the founders wanted THEIR god imposed on everyone, there would be no first ammentment, they would have put god in the pledge themselves, and they would have passed the commandments as the first 10 ammendments.
But they didn't...