The Alabama Ten Commandments Monument

According to (former) Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, as quoted by CNN, if the State of Alabama cannot display the Ten Commandments, eventually we “... will not be able to acknowledge the very source of our rights and liberties and the very source of our law.� And no one disputes that much of the principals of American law comes from Christian traditions. But there’s also an important difference that makes American law different from all that came before — the United States wrote into its Constitution freedom of religion and also separation of church and state. And if Judge Moore wants to recognize the “very source of our rights and liberties�, he can’t pick and choose, he has to acknowledge that some of our rights and liberties do not stem from previous Christian traditions.

But let’s look at the Ten Commandments carefully. For example, the commandments “Thou shalt not kill� and “Thou shalt not steal� are clearly parts of American law, but are they part of our law because of the Ten Commandments, or have many societies and many religions prohibited these things? “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor� is part of American law. The commandment “Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbour’s� is a little more problematical, as coveting clearly is not against the law, borrowing something from thy neighbor is clearly not against the law, although taking without asking is. Which brings us to the other six commandments. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me� is clearly not a part of American law, it is a religious statement. What about “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image�? Not part of the law either, clearly a religious statement. And so on, for the commandments “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain�, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy�, “Honour thy father and thy mother�. None of them have any legal meaning in American law. Finally, there’s “Thou shalt not commit adultery�, and last time I looked, adultery between consenting adulterers is perfectly legal here in the good old USA.

So really, the Ten Commandments have little to do with American law. They are filled with religious dictums, and I believe that’s what our founding fathers wanted to prohibit, the government promoting religious beliefs, and the beliefs of one particular religion at that. So the argument doesn’t hold water that the Ten Commandments have anything to do with the “very source of our rights and liberties and the very source of our law�. Let’s get the Ten Commandments monument out of the Alabama Courthouse, and let’s make sure that Judge Moore is permanently removed from from the bench. He is promoting religion, which although is perfectly legal, it is not to be condoned from a sitting American judge.