Six Commandments or Ten

Gene Lester/Contributor

In Roanoke, Virginia, there's a dispute over a Ten Commandments display in Narrows High School. Giles County school officials know that their display was unconstitutional, which is why they recently surrounded it with other documents and started claiming that it's a display about the history of and influences on American law. It's a ploy that some judges believe.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Urbanski isn't buying it, at least not yet, and wants the two sides to find a solution together. He actually suggested removing the first four commandments because they are the ones referencing "God," thus leaving just six. If this gets the two sides to agree on anything, it may only be that Judge Urbanski is a bit of a nut. But it is a starting point, right?

Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at Saint Vincent College, suggested Judge Urbanski offered the possibility of removing the explicitly religious commandments -- those that don't mention God -- simply in an effort to get the two sides talking.

"Sometimes, a judge will throw something out that's not a serious suggestion but is one that's meant to probe both parties on a particular matter," Antkowiak said.

Mathew Staber, founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, which is representing Giles County School District, said the district won't edit the Ten Commandments, which sit alongside such documents as the Declaration of Independence and Magna Carta in the district's display.

"The recommendation to eliminate the first four would ultimately result in more problems than the judge envisioned," Staber said. "If we edit out the first four, then we as a school would be taking a position of censoring, and we don't have any of the other documents edited.

"It wasn't the Six Commandments that were influential in American law and government, it was the Ten Commandments."

Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

OK, so maybe there is a non-nutty reason for suggesting that they cut down the Ten Commandments display to just Six Commandments. When you get right down to it, though, getting the two sides talking won't mean anything if there isn't anything to compromise on. Compromise means that both sides have to give up something (like, for example, giving up a couple of the commandments).

But there's nothing to give up -- either the Ten Commandments are there or they aren't. The school isn't willing to remove them entirely. The plaintiffs aren't willing to let them stay because they were obviously put there for unconstitutional reasons to begin with. Creating a "beard" with other historical documents doesn't make the display any less queer.

The position of the school administration and others working for the defense have been made rather clear by (naturally) a local bishop:

Chesapeake Bishop E.W. Jackson spoke to a crowd in Pearisburg. Jackson said he does not agree with a federal judge's suggestion that one way to resolve the controversy, is for the display including the Ten Commandments, to only show the six commandments that do not directly reference God. Jackson believes doing so, would be a slap in the face to our founding fathers.

"It is one more inexorable step in secularizing this nation, and making the mere mention of God unacceptable," Jackson told the group.

Source: Times-Dispatch

This is about a government school, not the nation, so what Bishop E.W. Jackson is really complaining about is the school being secularized. What he doesn't seem realize -- or perhaps simply opposes -- is that government schools are supposed to be secular. He's not in charge of them. They don't exist to promote or teach his religion.

Maybe this bothers him, I don't know, but if it does they he should focus on his own private, religious schools. Those schools can be just as religious as he wants. Schools run by the government, however, exist for everyone equally and they are supposed to be completely secular.

Using government schools to promote one religion or one set of religious doctrines with other people's money and resources is not just unconstitutional, it's immoral. I wonder if Bishop E.W. Jackson cares about that? Or maybe "morality" for him only comes into consideration once his own privileges and social superiority have been adequately protected.