Maybe the last straw was the Ten Commandments -- or rather, the 5,000-pound granite
sculpture of them installed in the Alabama State Judicial Building by the state Supreme Court痴 Chief Justice, Roy Moore.
Maybe it was the spectacle of Moore playing the martyr before the cameras when he defied a federal court order to remove the
monument. Or maybe it was the conservative pundits earnestly claiming that the Ten Commandments do not represent a specific
religion but rather general morality, or else the "Judeo-Christian philosophy" (apparently somehow distinct from religion)
that is the bedrock of our laws. ...
... On the Supreme Court frieze, Moses appears in the company of
history痴 other lawgivers, such as Confucius and Hammurabi.
In other courthouses, Ten Commandments plaques are featured along with historical
documents such as the Magna Carta. "Roy痴 Rock," as the Alabama monument came to be known, loomed majestically alone
as a symbol of Judeo-Christian supremacy -- a symbol meant, in Moore痴 words, to convey the message that the Ten Commandments
are the "moral foundation" of our law.
Are they? Only three of the commandments prohibit actual criminal conduct: killing,
stealing, and bearing false witness. "Honor thy father and thy mother" is a fine principle, but it is not the law of the land.
Neither is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and "make unto themselves no graven images." If we had a system literally
based on biblical law, it would look something like the sharia code of modern-day Islamic theocracies.
Of course American culture is steeped in Judeo-Christian heritage. But our law has
its roots in the secular Western tradition, from the Magna Carta to ancient Greece and Rome. ...
... The dispute isn稚 just about symbolism; it is relevant
to current debates about religion, law, and individual rights. ...
In a way, the conservatives who lament the removal of the Ten Commandments
from the courthouse have fallen into a classic "liberal" trap: the assumption that anything worth having is entitled to support
from the government.
Contributing Editor Cathy Young is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
