Ten Commandments Follow-Up

Well, the meeting mentioned in this blog post went (I suppose) as planned.

From The Trib:

A Monday night rally by the Thou Shall Not Move group in front of the covered Ten Commandments monument at Connellsville Junior High School was followed by the group encouraging the school board not to give up the fight to keep the monument.

“We want to see this all the way through legally,” said the Rev. Ewing Marietta before a group of Thou Shall Not Move members around the boarded-up Ten Commandments monument.

The group held the rally prior to Monday's agenda session of the Connellsville Area School Board.

And again there was the usual practice of changing the subject (subtly) in order to confuse the issue:

Gary Colatch of Connellsville told the board that the argument of separation of church and state is a falsehood. The nation's capital has many religious symbols that remain to this day, he said, recently shown to him by evangelist and historian David Barton.

“In the Capitol Rotunda, there's a painting on the wall, not hanging on the wall, but painted on the wall, of the baptism of Pocahontas,” Colatch said.

Yea, but again we're changing the subject aren't we?  The issue is not the placement of romanticized 19th Century presentations of historical events on public places that just happen to have a religious story to tell but whether the state has the authority to post this in a public school:

The Ten Commandments
I AM the LORD thy God.
I Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

II Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.

III Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Where the Supreme Court has clearly found posting the Ten Commandments at a Public School clearly "impermissible."

I suppose this is why they keep changing the subject.  They have to know they're fighting a losing battle.  The only question is: just how expensive will it end up being?

Ten Commandments Update - Connellsville Edition

It's been a while but what with the warmer weather and a court date approaching I am guessing there'll be more updates like this in the near future.

Though I could be wrong.

Here's the latest from the Tribune-Review:

The Thou Shall Not Move group plans to hold a Ten Commandments rally at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the covered monument located at the Connellsville Junior High School. After the rally, the group plans to attend the Connellsville Area School Board agenda session at 8 p.m. where members will present a special gift to board members for standing up to support the monument.

A court battle to remove the Ten Commandments monument from Connellsville Junior High School began more than a year ago when the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of an atheist who wanted the monument removed and the case remains in the courts.

More specifically, it's the placement of the monument at a public school that's at issue (this becomes important in a minute).

I'd like to point out some of the errors presented by the Trib.  First there's this:

[The Rev. Ewing Marietta, pastor of Liberty Church in Oliver] said the group plans to donate a Ten Commandments monument to a local city or municipality in the future.

“The courts have been on the side of municipalities in this fight,” Marietta said, adding that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Pleasant Grove, Utah in a recent Ten Commandments court case. The American Civil Liberties Union asked the courts to force the municipality to remove a Ten Commandments monument from city property.

“There have been cases where the courts ruled that municipalities could keep Ten Commandments monuments,” Marietta said. “We're hoping that happens in the Connellsville case.”

I'm sorry but the good Reverend has to do his homework better.  The case to which he's referring is Pleasant Grove v Summum which doesn't have much to do (as far as this non-attorney can see) with Ten Commandment monuments erected at public schools but with whether a municipality has to erect any permanent religious monument offered to it if it has erected others.  From the decision:

This case presents the question whether the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment entitles a private group to insist that a municipality permit it to place a permanent monument in a city park in which other donated monuments were previously erected. The Court of Appeals held that the municipality was required to accept the monument because a public park is a traditional public forum. We conclude, however, that although a park is a traditional public forum for speeches and other transitory expressive acts, the display of a permanent monument in a public park is not a form of expression to which forum analysis applies. Instead, the placement of a permanent monument in a public park is best viewed as a form of government speech and is therefore not subject to scrutiny under the Free Speech Clause. [Emphasis added.]

See that?  Nothing about removing a religious monument from a public school.  Even in the Jay Seculow of the conservative ACLJ describes it thusly:

The Court ruled in favor of Pleasant Grove unanimously. In an opinion by Justice Alito, the Court held that when it comes to displaying monuments on public lands -- a historical practice of governments since time immemorial -- the government is the speaker and has the right to “speak for itself,” “say what it wishes,” and “select the views it wants to express.” In other words, the Free Speech Clause doesn’t require the city to display Summum’s Seven Aphorisms because the city displays a Ten Commandments monument.

So the placement of the next sentence in the Trib:

The American Civil Liberties Union asked the courts to force the municipality to remove a Ten Commandments monument from city property.

Is simply incorrect - as the case was never about removing the Decalogue but forcing Pleasant Grove, Utah to accept Summum's "Seven Aphorisms" because it was already there.  Summum is the name of the church that wanted its monument in the same public park as the Ten Commandments, by the way.

That's error #1.

Here's error #2:

“If they take the Ten Commandments away from the kids in the Connellsville School District, I believe they will have no basis to give them any rules to follow,” said Tammy Marietta. “This would take away the foundation of the laws that we have.”

The Pastor's wife, unfortunately, has invalidated their entire argument right there.  If the purpose of the Ten Commandments monument at that Junior High School in Connellsville is to impose some religious instruction, then it's clearly impermissible.

Ten Commandment UPDATE

There hasn't been much movement in the lawsuits regarding the unconstitutional Ten Commandment monuments in New Kensington and Connellsville, as far as I can see.

But please, if I am error about that, let me know.

I wanted to draw your collective attention to this piece I found in the Trib.  Looks like our friends in the Thou Shalt Not Move have been busy:

A 15th granite Ten Commandments monument was unveiled on Saturday at Liberty Baptist Church in Uniontown, where the Rev. Ewing Marietta has been leading a battle to keep the monument outside Connellsville Junior High School.

“We finally have our Ten Commandments monument at Liberty Baptist Church,” said Marietta, organizer of the Thou Shall Not Move group, to a crowd of about 200 people. “But we're not going to stop here. We plan to raise enough money to erect 100 monuments.”

The Rev. Alfred Thompson, pastor of St. Paul's AME Church in Uniontown, said Christian denominations need to unite to support the cause and bring attention to the word of God.

But look. They've erected the monument on church grounds.  Unless there's a paradigm shift in constitutional law, they're going to loose the fight to keep the monument on school grounds.  There's no question that they're free to make a commandment erection on church grounds.  It's just when they're looking to use the guv'ment to impose religion (by way of a stone monument at a public school) that they run in conflict with the Constitution.

But that's all a frame work.  Let's zip our eyes down the page a few paragraphs:

Marietta told the group that the nation was founded on Christian principles and the Ten Commandments that serve as a guide for the American people and the basis for American laws.

“We have a reason and a purpose to follow the word of God,” Marietta said. “We need to pray for our children and teach them the importance of God's word. We need to bring God back into the schools and our nation.”

Gary Colatch, a member of the Thou Shall Not Move group, said teaching children about Christianity is important because they will be the nation's leaders and its future.

“We need to raise our children and grandchildren to trust in God,” Colatch said. “We were a godly and Christian nation, and we need to return to those principles. God will bless America again if we return to our Christian beliefs and values.”

Before the Ten Commandments monument was unveiled, the group sang “God Bless America.”

Yea, about that song.  They do know it was written by someone (Irving Berlin, born Israel Isidore Beilin) who wasn't a Christian, right?  And they do know that his family had to escape Imperial Russia because they were the wrong religion, right?  The Cossacks reportedly burned the family home to the ground because the Beilins were Jewish.  It's a good thing that they found their way to the land of the free, where everyone's faith (or non-faith) is protected.

Perhaps instead of God Bless America, they should have sung this:

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

Perhaps.

More On The Rev. Marietta Ewing And His Decalog

It's been a while since I blogged on this story and there've been a few developments.

First, let's congratulate the South Connellsville Council for doing the right thing (or at least for not doing the wrong thing)  From Marc Hofmann of The Trib:

Almost a year after the ongoing controversy surrounding the Ten Commandments monument started in Connellsville, South Connellsville council made a decision about an offer to place a monument in the borough.

During Monday's regular meeting, Councilman Clyde Martz said he received communication from the Rev. Ewing Marietta, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church, about placing a Ten Commandments monument at the South Connellsville Honor Roll.

There's Reverend Marietta again. This can't be good.  A few paragraphs later:

South Connellsville had to vote on placing a monument at the honor roll, a borough-owned property.

“We were advised by our solicitor to definitely not do that,” Martz said, adding the advice came from the fact that the issue has not been resolved with the school district in their ongoing legal battle and it would mostly likely end with a lawsuit against the borough. “That will put the borough in risk that we don't need at this time.”

Council unanimously voted against placing the monument at the honor roll. Council President Mark Ward did not attend Monday's meeting.

Good for them.  What's conveniently (and insultingly) left out of Hofmann's reporting is that while it's true that Connellsville's case has not yet been resolved, the question as to whether the Ten Commandments can be posted at a public school has been.  By the United States Supreme Court.  33 years ago:

This is not a case in which the Ten Commandments are integrated into the school curriculum, where the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like. Posting of religious texts on the wall serves no such educational function. If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.

Hofmann's piece implies that the issue of posting the Commandments in a public school "has not been resolved" which is simply untrue.  Not permissible in 1980.  Not permissible now.  Posting The Commandments on private property is not the question here no matter how much goalpost moving is tried.  Something the good reverend doesn't seem to understand.  In a recent letter to the editor, he writes:

Because one person objected to the 1957 Ten Commandments monument at the Connellsville Junior High, residents have been awakened. We are offended because it is God's word. It also is the free-speech rights of the members of the Fraternal Order of Eagles who placed the Decalog, the students, the citizens of Connellsville, Nomalville, Dunbar, Dunbar Township, Bullskin Township, South Connellsville, White, Juanita and every other town in Connellsville Area School District to keep the commandments there. This county is made up of mostly Christians who will not back down, will not sit down and cower to some bully telling us that we cannot tell our children about the Christian heritage of the United States.

Reverend, it's not because "one person objected" and it's not a free-speech issue for those who want to sidestep the Constitution and impose their particular metaphysics onto everyone else.  It's about our secular government being fair to everyone.  Everyone not just the largest group of bullies who are offended because everyone doesn't agree with them.

Doesn't The Lord dislike liars who sow discord in a community?

Ten Commandments Update

I am not sure who's more confused, me or The Rev. Ewing Marietta.

Well, that's a bit facetious on my part I must admit. Perhaps neither of us are confused.  Perhaps each of us is only a teensy bit confused but confused about different things.  Who know?  Whatever the case, it sure looks to me like the good pastor is missing the point about why the Ten Commandment monument at the Connellsville Jr High is so offensive.

Or maybe he gets the point and is just looking to save face, as it were.

Let's go to the news coverage at the Trib:

The Thou Shall Not Move group plans to erect four new Ten Commandments monuments at upcoming dedication ceremonies while the Connellsville School District and the Freedom From Religion Foundation continue to wage a legal battle over a monument that has been located on school property for more than a half century.

The Rev. Ewing Marietta, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church and an organizer of Thou Shall Not Move, said the dedication events will take place at 12:45 p.m. Sept. 8 at 301 S. Pittsburgh St., Connellsville; 5 p.m. Sept. 15 at the corner of North Arch and Water streets near the Amtrak train station; 1 p.m. Sept. 29 near a bus stop in Dunbar; and 7 p.m. Oct. 5 at 105 Hoke St., Bullskin Township.

Looks like they're erecting some new monuments in the area but it also looks like these erections are on private property.

“We have requests from 52 different places that want Ten Commandments monuments placed on their property,” he said. “We're going down the list and starting with the places that requested the monuments first.”

Marietta said the monuments have already been placed outside the Connellsville Eagles Club on Arch Street, on the grounds of St. Paul's AME Church on Morgantown Street in Uniontown and at the Juniata United Methodist Church in Dunbar.

This, of course, is completely constitutional as each of these spaces is private property.

And I am not sure whether Marietta gets the irony of the Trib's last paragraph:

“Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn, a Quaker who was in prison in England three times because of his religion, and came to this country for religious freedom,” Marietta said. “People should be able to hold onto their religious morals and values without the threat of being thrown into jail. We don't want to force the Ten Commandments monuments on anyone, but we don't want them taken away from the public eye.”

Still don't see the irony here?  I'll give you a hint from pa.gov:

Many Englishmen accused the Friends of disloyalty to the Crown as well as to the Church of England. As a result, the British Parliament enacted a series of repressive religious measures known as the Clarendon Code. The strictures elevated Anglicanism to "established church" status and declared all other religious observances to be "non-conformist" and, hence, illegal.

So he was arrested for not conforming to an established church.  Isn't the establishment of a state church something barred by the 1st Amendment?  And isn't posting religious instructions on school property something that is just too close to establishing a state church to be constitutionally acceptable?

Why yes, yes it is.

And so is The Rev. Ewing Marietta as wrong about this historical metaphor as he is about the nature of the separation of church and state?

Hot patootie and bless my soul, he certainly is.

Ten Commandments Update

I usually don't respond to letters to the editor found in newspapers.  I figure that everyone's entitled to their own opinion (even if I think it's wrong).

However if a public figure writes a letter to the editor about an issue, and especially if I've written about that public figure and/or that issue then I feel free to comment.

Where am I going with this?  Here.

The Rev. Ewing Marietta, Senior Pastor of the Liberty Baptist Church in Union, PA has written a letter to the editor regarding the Ten Commandments monument in Connellsville.  (Should even I bother with an Exodus16:1-36 reference?  Perhaps not.)

In it Pastor Marietta makes a few misrepresentations of the facts.  Most incorrect is this one:

The Constitution has not changed, but now we are not allowed to display the Ten Commandments outside a public building.

While I am not in favor of a such religious display (for example a stand-alone monument depicting the Ten Commandments) "outside of a public building" that's not exactly the issue here.

The issue is that the monument is on public school grounds - and that's unconstitutional.

As I've written before, there is some Supreme Court precedent regarding the Ten Commandments "outside of a public building" but as Justice Breyer points out in his discussion of Van Orden V Perry:

This case, moreover, is distinguishable from instances where the Court has found Ten Commandments displays impermissible. The display is not on the grounds of a public school, where, given the impressionability of the young, government must exercise particular care in separating church and state.

So when the good pastor writes that "The fight is still on to save Connellsville's 10 Commandments monument. We can and must win this case." He's wrong on all counts as the fight is already over.  Public displays of the Ten Commandments are impermissible.

But I want to look at what Pastor Marietta writes next:

Should this monument even be an argument right now? We need moral absolutes more than ever.

Really? Moral absolutism is what we need right now?

Take a look at this:


In the video, Richard Dawkins is asked this question:

My question is for professor Dawkins. Considering that atheism can not possibly have any sense of absolute morality, would it not then be an irrational leap of faith, which atheists themselves so harshly condemn, for an atheist to decide between right and wrong?

And he answers:

Absolute morality - the absolute morality that a religious person might profess would include what? Stoning people for adultery? Death for apostasy?  Punishment for breaking the Sabbath? These are all things which are religiously based absolute moralities. I don't think I want an absolute morality. I think I want a morality that is thought-out, reasoned, argued, discussed and based upon, I'd almost say intelligent design. Can we not design our society, which has the sort of morality, the sort of society that we want to live in?  If you actually look at the moralities that are accepted among modern people, among 21st century people, we don't believe in slavery anymore. We believe in equality of women. We believe in being gentle. We believe in being kind to animals. These are all things which are entirely recent. They have very little basis in Biblical or Quranic scripture. They are things that have developed over historical time through a consensus of reasoning, of sober discussion, argument, legal theory, political and moral philosophy. These do not come from religion. To the extent that you can find the good bits in religious scriptures, you have to cherry pick. You search your way though the Bible or the Quran and you find the occasional verse that is an acceptable profession of morality and you say, "Look at that! That's religion!" and you leave out all the horrible bits and you say, "Oh, we don't believe that anymore. We've grown out of that." Well, of course we've grown out it. We've grown out of it because of secular moral philosophy and rational discussion."

But are those punishments really the case?  Let's take them one by one

• Stoning people for adultery?  Deuteronomy 22:22 says:

  If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

• Death for apostasy? Deuteronomy 13:6-9 says:

  6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. 9 You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people.

• Punishment for breaking the Sabbath? Exodus 35:2 says:

  For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death.

Is this what the good pastor means when he talks about how "we need moral absolutes" now?  It must be - the texts are from The Bible and they are clear as can be.

God, I hope not.

Decalogue Update: Connellsville

From today's Tribune-Review:

The battle between Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation and a plaintiff named Doe 4 in legal papers against the Connellsville Area School District will reach a deadline on April 25.

In the meantime, the Thou Shall Not Move group in Connellsville will meet at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday to honor the Fayette County commissioners and to learn of the latest steps in the plan to place Ten Commandments monuments throughout the community.

I would think that the "plan to place Ten Commandments monuments throughout the community" is a good idea - take a look:

Thou Shall Not Move was formed to raise money for the school district to help with the costs of fighting the lawsuit. Since then, the organization has been selling yard signs with the Ten Commandments on them and started a Ten Commandments monument fund to help local churches place granite Ten Commandment monuments on their properties.

According to Marietta, legal paperwork will be presented and reviewed by legal counsel for those who get a monument.

To my Connellsville friends, I have to say that that is the solution: Move the monument onto private or church property.

Because leaving it at the Junior High in Connellsville is still unconstitutional - regardless of the transparent attempt of the Fayette County Commissioners to skirt the Constitution:

The Rev. Ewing Marietta, a leader for Thou Shall Not Move, said the county commissioners — Al Ambrosini, chairman; Vince Zapotosky, vice chairman; and Angela M. Zimmerlink, secretary — will attend the Wednesday meeting at the Connellsville Eagles on Arch Street.

“We will be honoring them,” Marietta said. “They took a stand and named the Ten Commandments monument (at Connellsville Junior High School) an historic landmark. They've done a bang-up job.”

Which is what they did last December:

The proclamation states, in part, that “the commissioners will stand with those to support the historical designation of this as a historical landmark with all rights and privileges extended to said landmark.

“The Ten Commandments are in the highest court in our land thus it acts as the cornerstone and guide for a country based on the rule of law,” the proclamation continued. “Viewed across time, this granite monument, signifying the rock of American Law and Jurisprudence, has had a profound, positive influence on ‘We the People,' is worthy of preservation for the future generations of this One Nation Under God.””

The only problem with linking the Connellsville public school's monument with what's on the wall of the Supreme Court is this from Steven Breyer.  In his concurring opinion in Van Orden V Perry he contrasted the placement of the Decalogue at barely permissible setting (in Texas, on the Capitol grounds) and he wrote:

This case, moreover, is distinguishable from instances where the Court has found Ten Commandments displays impermissible. The display is not on the grounds of a public school, where, given the impressionability of the young, government must exercise particular care in separating church and state. [Emphasis added.]

I'm not sure the County Commissioners for Fayette County have the authority to redefine what's impermissible.

Move the Ten Commandments monument off of public school grounds.

Kentucky Gets It Right

While perusing World Net Daily (aka birther-central) this morning, I saw this.  The headline reads:

ATHEISTS WIN TEN COMMANDMENTS BATTLE

WND writer Drew Zahn writes:

A Kentucky school district is yanking down multiple displays of the Ten Commandments after an atheist organization sent the county a letter warning the plaques were unconstitutional.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, or FFRF, a Wisconsin-based organization of “freethinkers” – explained on the group’s website as atheists, agnostics and skeptics devoted to spreading nontheism – told Kentucky’s Breathitt County School District it had received complaints about the displays.

Earlier this week, the district agreed to take down the displays, which had reportedly hung on area high school, middle school and several elementary schools’ walls for years.

Here's the letter the FFRF sent to the Breathitt County School District.

WND embeds this coverage of the story from WYMT-TV and in that story there's a telling quotation from a local resident who disagrees with the School Board's decision to take down the Commandments.  Mary Lou Campbell says:

Makes me angry. Because my grandchildren, I want them to have the Christian upbringing.

And so she wants the Ten Commandments to remain hanging in the public schools.

To its credit, the Kentucky Board of Education released this statement:

The display of religious materials, such as a painting of a religious figure or a copy of the Ten Commandments, in a public school violates the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on the establishment or endorsement of religion by a public agency. A school or district that displays copies of the Ten Commandments without the inclusion of other historical documents and not as part of a historical/comparative display is in violation of the U.S. Constitution. See the U.S. Supreme Court's holding on this issue in Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39, 101 S.Ct. 192 (1980). The Kentucky Department of Education's focus in Breathitt County is on student achievement and college and career readiness and using its resources to support those efforts.

The 2012 Kentucky School Laws says that:

No preference shall ever be given by law to any religious sect, society or denomination; nor to any particular creed, mode of worship or system of ecclesiastical polity; nor shall any person be compelled to attend any place of worship, to contribute to the erection or maintenance of any such place, or to the salary or support of any minister of religion; nor shall any man be compelled to send his child to any school to which he may be conscientiously opposed; and the civil rights, privileges or capacities of no person shall be taken away, or in anywise diminished or enlarged, on account of his belief or disbelief of any religious tenet, dogma or teaching. No human authority shall, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience.

And in discussing the unconstitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments on school property, it reads:

Since the pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature, this section has no secular legislative purpose and is therefore unconstitutional as violative of the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution; it does not matter that the posted copies are financed by voluntary private contributions, for the mere posting of the copies under the auspices of the Legislature provides the official support of the state government that the establishment clause prohibits.

Each is correct.  And as a result the unconstitutional displays have been removed - all within a couple of weeks  It's been about 8 months since the FFRF sent letters to two local school districts about theirequally unconstitutional Ten Commandment monuments.  As of right now, those two monuments have yet to be removed.

If Kentucky can get it so right so quickly, why can't New Kensington or Connellsville?

News For This Easter

They're still fighting the good fight in Connellsville over the unconstitutional Ten Commandments monument.

The Rev. Ewing Marietta, a leader for the “Save the Ten Commandments” group in Connellsville, called the battle “ground zero” and said it is time to take a stand.

Marietta made the statement during a meeting Wednesday at the Connellsville Eagles.

Marietta said the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the group that filed a lawsuit to have the Ten Commandments monument removed from the grounds of the Connellsville Junior High, is “trying to destroy our country.”

For those few of you not up to speed on this story, there's a decades old monument in at the Connellsville Junior High School.  It was a gift from the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1957 and it was a PR tie-in to the Cecil B. DeMille epic, The Ten Commandments.

It's also unconstitutional.  I can't stress that enough.  According to the US Supreme Court in 1980, posting the Ten Commandments on public school grounds "has no secular legislative purpose" and is therefore Unconstitutional.  The decision went on to say that:

The pre-eminent purpose of posting the Ten Commandments, which do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, is plainly religious in nature, and the posting serves no constitutional educational function.

So let's take a look at what the good Reverend has had to say about why the Commandments needs to stay on public school grounds in Connellsville:

“Our liberties cannot be taken away. They are a gift from God,” Marietta said. “The Ten Commandments are the basis of our laws. If we don't teach our children about the Ten Commandments, someday they will ask why they have to follow the laws of God and our nation.”

Each one of those statements has a problem.

• Liberties are taken away all the time (whether "gifts" from God or not).  Ask anyone who's in jail.  Or in prison.  You can even extend the argument (albeit it's on a much smaller scale) to anyone boarding a plane or a few decades ago anyone drafted into the Armed Forces.
• According to the Constitution (which fails to mention God at all), the Constitution itself is the Supreme Law of the Land.  If anyone can explain how the commandment "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" or the commandment "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images." or any of the others has anything to do with the Separation of Powers, or the First Amendment's prohibition (even at it's most narrowly drawn) of a State Religion, please let me know.
• It's this last sentence that's the most trouble for the Marietta.  To see why, just flip his argument over: The posting of the Ten Commandments will enable them to understand that they have to follow the laws of God.  How is that possible in a society governed, in part, by this sentence:

  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Unless he was taken out of context (and there's no reason to think this), the Reverend Ewing Marietta wants the Connellsville school district to impose one particular religious idea onto the entire student body.

This is surprising to me (as I've written before) as his own church's website, on a page titled "What We Believe", in a section describing "Religious Liberty" we read:

Church and state should be separate. The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. In providing for such freedom no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by the state more than others.

And:

The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work.

And yet, this is precisely what Marietta wants.  He's free to preach all he wants about the value of the Commandments but he's not free to use the civil authorities to amplify his message to anyone else.

Religious Freedom Update

According to this poll, done by the Barna Group, there's something very interesting going on in one segment of American society.

Huffington Post has the summary:

Half of Americans worry that religious freedom in the U.S. is at risk, and many say activist groups -- particularly gays and lesbians -- are trying to remove "traditional Christian values" from the public square.

No that's not it.

The findings of a poll published Wednesday (Jan. 23), reveal a "double standard" among a significant portion of evangelicals on the question of religious liberty, said David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group, a California think tank that studies American religion and culture.

Getting closer, but that's not it, either.

While these Christians are particularly concerned that religious freedoms are being eroded in this country, "they also want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture," said Kinnamon.

THERE IT IS.

I touched on this a few times last year (here and here) but it's good to see some numbers supporting the same idea.  So what are the numbers?  From Barna:

Though most Americans agree religious freedoms should be granted to people of all faiths, there are still a significant number of people (23%) who believe traditional Judeo-Christian values should be given preference in the public square. The majority, though, would disagree: two-thirds of Americans (66%) say there’s no one set of values that should dominate the country and another 11% of adults declined or gave another response. Practicing Catholics (24%) are about on par with the national average, while practicing Protestants (35%) and evangelicals (54%) are above average in selecting traditional Judeo-Christian values.

But take a closer look at that first sentence.  First, let me quote some well known conservative rhetoric and point out that freedoms aren't granted they're to be protected or limited.  But that aside, shouldn't the religious freedoms of everyone (not just "people of all faiths") be protected?  I realize this could be just some sloppy writing so let's assume that I am seeing something that's not there.  But what does that leave us?

Between a fifth and a quarter of the American population believes in "religious freedom" while still paradoxically believing that "traditional Judeo-Christian values" should dominate the culture.

People like these people in Connellsville:

Thou Shalt Not Move, a grassroots group, urged the Connellsville area to continue to support efforts to keep the Ten Commandments Monument at the Connellsville Junior High School.

More specifically:

“We are under attack on a national level and this issue, as small as it seems to some, is as big as the right to bear arms and Obamacare where they’re taking the right to health care away from you,” [Meeting organizer Gary] Colatch said. “They’re trying to strip away our rights. We’re facing that tyranny today. We’re facing that tyranny in Connellsville.” [Emphasis added.]

Again, it's a Ten Commandments monument at a public school.  It's unconstitutional.  Mr Colatch is looking to protect a religious right that he doesn't actually have: the "right" to use the public school system to impose his faith onto others.

Meanwhile, there's been some movement at that other unconstitutional monument (the one in New Kensington):

A federal district judge on Tuesday denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a Wisconsin-based group against a school district in Westmoreland County regarding its display of a Ten Commandments monument.

And:

The arguments to dismiss the cases filed on behalf of the school districts were similar, specifically referring to the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Van Orden v. Perry.

We've looked at Van Orden before.

Here's the judge's denial of the motion to dismiss.

On hearing news of the denial, Rev. Ewing Marietta had this to say:

A federal district judge on Tuesday denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a Wisconsin-based group against a school district in Westmoreland County regarding its display of a Ten Commandments monument.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) sued both the New Kensington-Arnold School District and the Connellsville Area School District over displays of the Ten Commandments posted outside schools in each district. The New Kensington-Arnold suit was filed first, and there is a decision pending on a motion to dismiss the Connellsville suit.

“This may not be the best news for us,” Marietta said. [Emphasis added.]

Sorry to hear that you're disappointed, Reverend.

On the other hand, it's always a good news when everyone's religious freedom is being protected.

Connellsville Ten Commandments Update

Lawyers for the Freedom From Religion Foundation have filed a "Brief in Opposition to Defendant's Motion To Dismiss" a few days ago.

You can read it here.

Let's take a few steps back and look at the motion they're opposing.  Liz Zemba of The Trib writes this:

In seeking to dismiss the case, attorneys for the school district argued, among other reasons, that the monument should stay because it is more secular than religious. Courts in other cases found that similar monuments on government-owned property do not violate the establishment clause, they argued, including one at the Texas State Capitol that survived a Supreme Court challenge.

This requires some explanation.  Whereas I (a non-attorney if ever there was one) tend to think that the issue's been settled by Stone V Graham, there's another Supreme Court case upon which the school district's attorney's are relying - Van Orden V Perry.  Here's what happened: in 2004 two very similar cases were decided before the Supreme Court, Van Orden v Perry and McCreary County, Kentucky v. ACLU of Kentucky and the Supremes held that the former display constitutional and the latter unconstitutional.

Justice Breyer was the "swing" vote in the sense that his was the only vote that changed between the two cases.

From the District's earlier brief:

In the plurality opinion finding no Establishment Clause violation, Chief Justice Rehnquist, (joined by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas), provided that the Court’s Establishment Clause analysis would be “driven both by the nature of the monument and by our Nation’s history.” Acknowledging the history and significance of the Ten Commandments, the Court distinguished the “passive use” of the Eagles’ Ten Commandments monument by the State of Texas from the impermissible use of the text by the State of Kentucky, which had mandated by statute that the text be posted inside every public classroom. Id. at 691 (distinguishing Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980)). After a detailed discussion of our Nation’s history regarding the use of the Ten Commandments and other religious symbols, Chief Justice Rehnquist, with a fifth vote from Justice Breyer concurring in the judgment, concluded that the State did not violate the Establishment Clause by its display of the Eagles’ Ten Commandments monument on Capitol grounds. (“We cannot say that Texas’ display of this monument violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment”) (Emphasis added).

Justice Breyer, concurring in the judgment, agreed that the text of the Ten Commandments conveys a religious message, but cautioned, as did Chief Justice Rehnquist, that focusing on the religious nature of the message alone cannot resolve an Establishment Clause. Instead, the context in which the text is used must also be considered. According to Justice Breyer, the State of Texas displayed the monument on its Capitol to communicate both a secular and a religious message. Id. He concluded, however, that the “circumstances surrounding the display’s placement on the Capitol grounds and its physical setting suggest that the State” intended the secular aspects of the monument’s message to predominate, despite the monument’s religious content. (Breyer, J., concurring in judgment).

(Let me state that the "Emphasis added" above is in the brief. It's not my note.)

From Breyer's concurring opinion in Van Orden we read:

The case before us is a borderline case. It concerns a large granite monument bearing the text of the Ten Commandments located on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol. On the one hand, the Commandments' text undeniably has a religious message, invoking, indeed emphasizing, the Deity. On the other hand, focusing on the text of the Commandments alone cannot conclusively resolve this case. Rather, to determine the message that the text here conveys, we must examine how the text is used. And that inquiry requires us to consider the context of the display.

So it's the context of the placement of the monument that defines it's constitutionality.  And from this, it's my guess that Connellsville is looking to establish the context of the monuments as secular.  If they can establish that, then Van Orden is the Case to use in their argument.

The only problem is what Breyer wrote elsewhere in this opinion:

This case, moreover, is distinguishable from instances where the Court has found Ten Commandments displays impermissible. The display is not on the grounds of a public school, where, given the impressionability of the young, government must exercise particular care in separating church and state.

All this was in my talk a few weeks ago before the Center for Inquiry (a talk which most of you missed, by the way).  Imagine my relief when what I said at that talk isn't much in conflict with this week's Brief in Opposition.

Whew.

From the brief:

Justice Breyer’s concurring opinion also highlights the distinction between public school grounds and other government property. At the outset, Justice Breyer focused on the particular context of the Texas Capitol monument and called Van Orden “a borderline case.” Id. at 700. Justice Breyer distinguished the Texas Capitol display from the public school context: “This case, moreover, is distinguishable from instances where the Court has found Ten Commandments displays impermissible. The display is not on the grounds of a public school, where, given the impressionability of the young, government must exercise particular care in separating church and state.” Id. at 703. (citing Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 592; Stone, 449 U.S. at 39). In its Brief, the Defendant purports to explain away this statement by Justice Breyer by conjuring up hidden meaning. Def. Brief, p. 14- 15. According to the Defendant’s memorandum, “For it was not merely the school setting that Justice Breyer was arguably recognizing as distinguishable, but the manipulative, coercive, and restraining conduct by the State evidenced in Lee.” Id. There is no support for this bald assertion. Justice Breyer’s statement specifically distinguished Van Orden from a display “on the grounds of a public school” with no mention of further conduct by the government.

Whew, as I said.

This religious monument currently stands on the grounds of a public school and there is simply no way to describe it with any other word than this one: UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

New Kensington Ten Commandments Monument Update

Just as there's a Facebook page supporting the (still unconstitutional) Ten Commandments monument in Connellsville, there's now a Facebook page calling for the removal of the (equally unconstitutional) Ten Commandments monument in New Kensington.

From the description:

This purpose of this group is to show support and solidarity for plaintiffs in Freedom From Religion Foundation v. New Kensington-Arnold School District, a federal lawsuit currently before the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Plaintiffs object to a stone monument depicting the 10 Commandments prominently displayed in front of Valley High School, a public school in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.

Such displays show overt favoritism for Christianity on behalf of the government and violate the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment as applied to the states via the 14th Amendment, as found by the United States Supreme Court in Stone v. Graham.

Anyone know if there's a similar facebook page for the monument in Connellsville?