Via our pals at StopTheACLU.org, I came across this ridiculous brief from the National Legal Foundation in the McCreary Ten Commandments case. The NLF says it is an organization "dedicated to the defense of First Amendment liberties and to the restoration of the moral and religious foundation on which America was built." And in this brief, they argue that the Ten Commandments has had a huge impact on American law. To prove this point, they cite dozens of laws from the British colonies that predate our constitution:
The third commandment, "Honor God's name," has impacted America law and jurisprudence.The third commandment also historically shaped American law and jurisprudence. Laws enacted to observe the third commandment were organized into two categories: laws prohibiting blasphemy and laws prohibiting swearing and profanity...
Colonies enacted laws that embodied these two categories. For example, a 1610 Virginia law declared:
That no man speak impiously or maliciously against the holy and blessed Trinity or any of the three persons...upon pain of death. That no man blaspheme God's holy name upon the pain of death.
"Articles, Laws, and Orders, Divine, Politic, and Martial for the Colony of Virginia" (1610-1611), reprinted in Colonial Origins, supra, at 316. Similarly, a 1639 Connecticut law declared that
[i]f any person shall blaspheme the name of God the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, with direct, express, presumptuous or high-handed blasphemy, or shall curse in the like manner, he shall be put to death. Lev. 24.15, 16.
Now remember, these are the same people who are constantly telling us that it's absurd to accuse them of wanting theocracy in America, yet here they are citing laws that put people to death for blasphemy as proof that the Ten Commandments are a vital part of our legal heritage. And are they really so dense as to not recognize that all of these examples are from before the constitution and were written by colonial governments that were theocratic in nature? What could possibly be more contrary to the notion of free exercise of religion than to put people to death for blasphemy? The first amendment was written precisely to avoid this kind of barbaric oppression, but not only do they apparently think it's okay, they think it's part of the "moral and religious foundation on which America was built." Sorry, no. There is nothing moral about killing people who disagree with your religion. It's precisely what the Ayatollahs of Iran have attempted to do to Salman Rushdie for the past 15 years. This is not morality, it is the height of immorality and barbarism and our constitution was written to reject it, not to embrace it.
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What is it with ayatollahs today? Denyse O'Leary:
LOL. Coming from Denyse O'Leary, that's really funny. That woman is quite unhinged, it seems. She's working very hard to become the Ann Coulter of the ID movement.
Wow, that is scary. People think that these fundamentalists will just die out, or that they will give up, but I don't think they will. They will keep pushing their fundamentalist agenda until they are stopped.
That brief is conclusive proof of two things. First, that courts really do have a sense of humor. The clerks must have just had a field day with that thing. Second, whoever it was that said the two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity was absolutely correct.
Let's put aside the revisionist history underlying the old "American law is derived from the Ten Commandments" canard. We can also ignore for the moment the fact that a government-sponsored display of the Ten Commandments is, in all but the narrowest of circumstances, a religious endorsement. The most mind-blowing thing of all is the fact that these people are too ignorant to see that the entire purpose behind the Establishment Clause was to keep wingnuts like them from taking over government. That sort of ignorance is just breathtaking. People that stupid really should come with a warning label.
Careful, Ed. Theocrats despise being labeled such. They know they could never advance their goals in open and in rational conversation, so they advance their agenda by proxy, through Intelligent Design Theory or 'judicial restraint'. Seeing through all this garbage and telling a theocrat to keep his religious faith out of your government is tantamount to persecution against Christians, despite the fact that you may personally be a Christian yourself. To a theocrat, one cannot be a secular citizen and a loyal Christian at once. Try to communicate with a theocrat as a fellow Christian by pointing to parts of the Bible that may accord with secularism, and you are accused of maliciously using scripture against the true faith. I don't know how much this applies to you, but as a molecular biologist and Darwinian and Christian, I can't express my frustration and alienation.
'molecular biologist and Darwinian and Christian, I can't express my frustration and alienation.'
Interesting.