From WDBJ:
The ACLU of Virginia today objected to a decision by the Giles County School Board to re-post the Ten Commandments in public schools, and says it will consider legal action.
“This action flies in the face of both strong legal precedents and our fundamental notions of what religious equality means in the United States,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis.
“When the government promotes one faith, whether it is through the Ten Commandments or other religious documents,” added Willis, “it automatically diminishes all other faiths. Religious equality is an empty principle if something as powerful and influential as a school board is allowed to impose its religious views on the students who attend the schools under its jurisdiction.”
For at least the last ten years, large framed versions of the Ten Commandments hung in all five Giles County public schools, next to a copy of the Constitution. After the Freedom from Religion Foundation in Wisconsin complained last month that the documents violated the First Amendment’s mandate for separation of church and state, the copies of the Ten Commandments were removed and replaced with copies of the Declaration of Independence.
But yesterday, at a meeting attended by more than 200 county residents who objected to the removal of the Ten Commandments, the school board voted unanimously to put them on the school walls.
In doing so, the school board ignored not only clear U.S. Supreme Court precedents but also acted against the advice of its attorney and the school superintendent’s earlier decision to remove the Ten Commandments.
“After government officials hear from organizations like the ACLU,” said Willis “they typically consult with their own attorneys. When legal advisors on their own payroll support our position, that solves the problem then and there. What is unusual about this situation is that Giles County School Board members are ignoring advice from their own attorney.”
Willis added: “There are some circumstances in which the Ten Commandments may be temporarily displayed in a public school, such as when they are part of a large exhibit about the development of laws and mores throughout history. But that is not the case here.”
Giles County borders on Monroe, Summers, and Mercer Counties in West Virginia. It is deep within the Appalachian “Bible Belt.”
According to Pat Robertson’s CBN, the school board in Giles County decided to take the 10 Commandments down, but on Friday, it decided to put them back up. Pat Robertson, no surprise, is very much in favor of displaying them.
The debate on this will go this way: The ACLU and other religious freedom organizations will sue. The locals will circle the wagons, claiming that outside agitators (ACLU- “American Communist Lawyers Union”) has come to attack God and Christianity. It will be claimed to be an example of Obama’s “Marxism.” Never mind that people of faith should always be concerned with the state tries to promote religion. The Colony of Virginia and the Commonwealth of Virginia that existed under the Articles of Confederation promoted the Church of England as its state church, calling the body the Episcopal Church after the Revolution. Posting the protestant 10 Commandments is promoting the protestant version of Christianity. I don’t know why people don’t see this as a problem
The actual issues involved in the case will be swept under as what I call “Appalachian Identity Politics” takes over the discourse. The outsiders don’t respect your culture, so you must reject everything they say. The outsiders could do whole lot better if they tired to understand how important faith is to many people in Appalachia, but trying to explain these issues is very difficult– particularly when many protestant ministers and pastors promote the fiction that the Founding Fathers used the bible as the foundation for the constitution.
sigh.. people don’t understand that the founders believed in separating church and state as much to protect the church as to protect the state. As freethinkers, they understood that people worship in different ways and that the way to protect all those ways was to keep the state out of it.
A good post illustrating the flak the Founding Fathers even got at the time for doing that: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/12/reading-the-godless-constitution.html
Yeah. I should note that it was Thomas Jefferson who got Virginia out of the business of promoting the state Anglican church:
http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/vaact.html
This is eloquent.
Germany doesn’t have this.
Even though, like us, it was made up of different “states” that had different religious traditions, the Lutheran and Calvinist churches and the Catholic church are recognized as state religions. Your taxes go to those churches, and tithes are taken out of your paycheck if you claim membership.
Which is why atheism is rampant over there.
I love it when the district goes against their own lawyer’s recommendations. Do you think when they lose the inevitable lawsuit that costs the district loads of money, the lawyer says, “I told you so?”
It’s even better when the lawyer pulls a stupid.
We had a recent incident like this nearby involving the flying of a Christian flag in a public place. Although I certainly agree with the wisdom of seperating church and state, in a country that promotes freedom of religion, I wish the factions that suddenly want such religious icons removed(which may have been in place for decades or longer) would get over it and quit making a big deal out of such things! I think such public displays are fine, so long as the people that support them would be just as tolerant if America’s Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Native Americans, Pagans, Atheists, and all others want to publically display something as well! There is wisdom in all religions(and the lack-of), and I’m all for anyone displaying anything they want in this country, so long as it isn’t hurting anyone else. But I think if you displayed some quotes from the Koran in public schools, the Christian Rightists would GO BALISTIC!!!!! Showing of course, that their idea of “freedom of religion” isn’t so free!
I expect most Christian denominations would object to someone of Wiccan religion having their religion represented. Most religions are antithetical to one or more other religions. There is no way a Government entity can really support one without in one way or another offending someone else — not to mention those who have no religion. When one reads about the “Salem witch trials” and realizes that Quakers were considered heretics by the “Puritans” and that at least one individual was pressed to death because they weren’t the “right religion”, it becomes much more understandable that while it is sad to have to insist that some long-standing icon must go, it never should have been Government-supported in the first place.
Just as many of the “founders” didn’t quite realize the hypocrisy in “all men are created equal” in a time of both slavery and denial of voting rights to those who happened to not be the “right” sex, it’s the case that many folk aren’t aware of the favortism for religious icons as seen by those who aren’t of that particular religion.
Peggy Richter
Since the Bible predates the split in the church how can the Ten Commandments be described as protestant?
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/Bible%20Studies/10%20Commandments.htm
Protestants and Catholics also have different bibles. Martin Luther “edited” his bible, and all protestant churches base their bible off of his.
Eastern Orthodox churches have the Catholic bible, plus a few additional books.
And the Mormons have the protestant bible and then an entirely different revelation.
Followers of the gnostic gospels have additional books, too.
http://www.twopaths.com/faq_bibles.htm
The school board in York, PA ignored their attorney’s advice also when they were sued for infusing creationism into their curriculum. When they were hit with the $1,000,000 judgement for legal fees their insurance company told them were not covered…..because they ignored their attorney. The district was on the hook because of a handful of morons.