The ten commandments monument that Roy Moore famously refused to remove from the Alabama Supreme Court building continues its world tour, stopping this week in my home state. Like all good tours, the monument has an opening act, but the act changes at every stop as state and local politicians take their turn primping and preening and shaking their head over this sad state of affairs. In Michigan, the opening act is a duo made up of Republican state representatives Bob Gosselin and Jack Hoogendyk - the Hall and Oates of the self-righteous set. They're traveling with the monument as it makes its journey across the state, delivering boilerplate speeches wherever a crowd gathers.
Not coincidentally, both of these men are also creationism advocates, Gosselin having been the sponsor of the pro-ID bill that MCFS formed to fight a few years ago. Hoogendyk, who is from the town I grew up in, is currently on the House Education Committee and plans to introduce the same bill again this year. But in the meantime, they're both on the road crusading for God and apple pie, and along they way they're spreading some major league manure around:
Hoogendyk, a Republican from Portage who is running for governor in 2006, said Michigan residents want to be reminded of the Decalogue's influence on the nation's history."The laws that were written and the Constitution framed 250 years ago almost was based on the Ten Commandments," he said. "That is the foundation of truth and law from which sprang all of our laws. I don't think there's any disputing that, although some would disagree."
How much nonsense can you pack into a couple of sentences? First, the notion that Michigan residents "want to be reminded" about the Ten Commandments is one of those meaningless phrases that flows so easily from the lips of politicians. If they want to be reminded, does that mean they've forgotten about the Ten Commandments? Obviously not, if they've gone to the trouble of telling you they want to be reminded. Second, the Constitution was not written "250 years ago almost", it was less than 220 years ago. If you're gonna round off, you should at least do it correctly. Third, the statement is flat wrong. Where in the Constitution is there a single provision that is even remotely analogous to anything found in the Ten Commandments? 7 of them would of course be entirely unconstitutional, so they obviously can't the "foundation" of the Constitution. This is just idiotic rhetoric, but you know it will play very well to the throngs of ignorant people who will flock to this display. Then there's this little gem:
"I don't believe there's anything in the Ten Commandments that would prohibit anyone from worshipping God as they see appropriate," Hoogendyk said. "And I think without question, Christians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims certainly would all agree that that's the case."
For crying out loud, has he never even read the Ten Commandments? At least three of them infringe directly on the free exercise of religion, numbers one, two and four. If I was a Christian, it would annoy me to no end to see politicians so brazenly exploit this issue to score political points, especially when they make Christians sound like idiots with their historically-ignorant and meaningless rhetoric in the process.
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"I don't believe there's anything in the Ten Commandments that would prohibit anyone from worshipping God as they see appropriate," Hoogendyk said.
Reminds of the probably apocryphal quote by Henry Ford on the Model-T, "You can paint it whatever color you like, as long as its black."
Ed:
How much power has the creationist/ID movement in Michigan?
Surely the most idiotic part of that quote is that last sentence: " I don't think there's any disputing that, although some would disagree." That's better than anything Bush could come up with.
And regardless of the constitutionality of the whole thing, surely by enumerating the monotheistic religions he claims the ten commandments allow for, Hoogedynk realises he is excluding polytheistic and atheistic ones like Hinduism and Buddhism. Then again, since he seems to think "Christians" and "Catholics" are mutually exclusive maybe he doesn't.
How much power has the creationist/ID movement in Michigan?
There's not an organized state ID group here as there is in Kansas, but there are many sympathetic legislators. In the last two legislative sessions there has been a bill entered to mandate the teaching of ID in science classes, but neither time did it come up for consideration in the education committee. It appears that the same bill will be entered again, but I don't know how likely it is to come up for a vote. I suspect the bill is entered primarily to score political points with the religious right.
Locally, there are a couple of situations ongoing where school districts have allowed ID material to be used. I'm working on a writeup on one of those situations, as it looks like it may blow up into a Dover-type situation soon. We've been trying to get it resolved behind the scenes, but the administration seems not to be cooperating.
You know, Judaism can easily claim that Christians violate the ten commandments all the time--How can anyone (even the Messiah?) be held up for worship next to the One God? Isn't that a violation of the decalogue right from the start?
It's interesting. Muslim's persecute Christians as polytheists precisely on the Grounds that they violate the First Commandment and other parts of the Old Testament.
To Muslims, Jews and Unitarians, 3 Gods are 3 Gods, they aren't one God.
On what rational evidence would we base a claim that these two guys represent Christianity in any way? Their say-so alone?
I mean, how do we know they aren't satirists out to do in the faith?
You know, Judaism can easily claim that Christians violate the ten commandments all the time--How can anyone (even the Messiah?) be held up for worship next to the One God? Isn't that a violation of the decalogue right from the start?
Not necessarily. I recently read an interesting comment on the 10 Suggestions that indicated that they would allow for multiple gods. The relevant Suggestion is "Thou shall have no other gods before me." That doesn't state that "Thou shall have no other gods"--but if thou has other gods, none shall be "before me." A god can be coordinate with me. And a god can be below (after) me. But no gods will be before me.
I'm making light of this largely because I believe the Wholly Babble to largely be a crock, but the comment that I read was actually quite serious. And it conforms to some scholarship that suggests that the ancient Hebrews actually were polytheistic and that their main god at one time was a goddess.
One of the more fascinating outcomes of faith-based realities is the ability of a set of believers to glean a few dabs here and a few dabs there of text and claim them to be the one true litany for everyone else. The rendering of a few verses, of this chapter from a book in the torah called 'exodus,' into some sort of creed for people who must fundamentally ignore most of the rest of the torah is indicative of their own failed hermeneutics. Indeed one of the central contexts of the chapter is that this god is jealous and frustrated w/ people worshipping baal and other gods, and orders one of the leaders to go forth with this new set of laws by which this one god lords over the others. Damn context always gets in the way of true believers.
Ed: way off topic, but you might be interested in some information in Mike Signorile's latest column. It's at http://www.signorile.com/articles/nyp138.html I find the following most interesting:
Um, the Log Cabineers need to attract "contributions" from third parties? For what purpose? One might seriously wonder whether the Log Cabin group has become little more than a money laundering operation.
I attended the viewing of the Monumnent in Kalamazoo and offer the following account:
I happened to hear on TV this morning that the infamous "Roy's Rock" would be in Kalamazoo today. That's the stone monument originally installed in the Alabama Supreme Court Building by Judge Roy Moore that displays the 10 Commandments and other historic documents. A legal suit eventually led to the removal of the monument, and it is now on tour around the country. My curiosity and lust for sensationalism compelled me to go see what was happening.
Those living anywhere close to downtown Kalamazoo may have heard all the wailing sirens and wondered what the ruckus was about. I found Bronson Park to be overflowing with passionate people, both supporters and opponents of Moore. The monument stood defiantly on the back of a flatbed truck, gleaming in the Noontime sun. The police had set up barricades to control the milling crowds, making it possible for the faithful to file slowly past the monument, paying obesiance to it (I hear the City has incurred a huge debt because of the many off duty policemen called in to manage the situation). Exclamations of outrage were heard as Moore's accolytes anguished over the injustice done to him (to say nothing of the affront to God) when he was ousted from his position as Chief Justice of Alabama. A speaker stood on the truck and told the crowd that at one stop on the Monument tour, Judge Moore spoke to a crowd of as many as 500 people who cheered him for as long as 2 minutes after he told them of his ordeal and the crusade it has spawned.
Opponents to Moore in the park included Communist sympathizers who shouted slogans extolling the virtues of Joseph Stalin and yearning for the days of the Soviet purges. Homosexuals swarmed the park trying to recruit people to the homosexual lifestyle; they would not take no for an answer. Greasy Evolutionists slithered among the crowd carrying placards making the outlandish claim that the snake in the Garden of Eden had evolved from a creature that had legs. Some Moore supporters fainted from shock when confronted with such blasphemy. I elbowed my way up as near as I felt I could to the truck without endangering myself and succeeded in getting some pictures (Pictures not included in this post). Amazingly I managed to escape without being inundated with Bible tracts.
Let this be a warning that the Culture Wars continue in earnest and require our constant vigilence.
(Disclaimer: This account is fictional and is in no way intended to represnt the actual behavior of any groups or individuals mentioned. Actually, while I was there, the number in attendance varied from maybe 8 to 20, and I supect many of those were just curious to see what was going on, like myself.)
I have to say gowncity makes an excellent point here.
Raj, I was mostly thinking of present-day Orthodox Jews when I wrote what I did. Their interpretation is that there aren't any other gods, and "before" is interpreted to mean something like "in the sight of" the One. But still, it's a good point. Also recall the several places in the Old Testament where God is pluralized (!).
That said, if you believe the trinity is actually three gods, it's fairly easy to argue that for Christians, Jesus is "before" God. After all, he did say "No-one omes to the father except through me." And pretty much the entirety of modern Christianity is about accepting Jesus as your saviour.
Just out of curiosity, Ed: is Moore's Folly going to be making a stop here in Illinois? Because if it is, I intend to give it the attention it deserves: namely, ignoring it.
Ed,
I think you misread his comments. I read the word "almost" to go with the phrase "almost was based on the Ten Commandments", not "The laws that were written and the Constitution framed 250 years ago almost" (which would be a weird grammatical structure to use). It makes more sense this way since Patrick Henry and his clan were in favor of a theocratic government.