An Interesting Idea

This article in An American Lawyer argues that we should drop the pretense and decide once and for all how much religion should be allowed in the public arena. Key quotes:

"Next winter, we will witness oral advocates arguing before the high court-with a straight face, mind you-that the commandments possess absolutely no spiritual significance for anyone; they are purely "historical artifacts." And precisely as they intone this constitutional equivalent of the philanderer's mantra ("She means nothing to me, honest!"), angry citizens on the marble plaza before the Court will be waving signs saying, "Put God back into Government" and "Yaweh or the Highway."



By the same token, atheists and civil libertarians on the other side-folks who have survived decades of Sunday school and reruns of CBS's Touched by an Angel-will insist, in Court and out on the plaza, that even a passing glance at "Honor Thy Father and Mother" will either turn their children into mad evangelicals, or open the door to a lifetime of religious persecution and ostracizing. . . .



What, then, would a truly honest discussion of the Ten Commandments and other establishment clause cases look like? What if we could rewind constitutional history and erase the idea that the folks promoting religion in these cases are actually promoting secular historicism or ceremonial deism? (After all, some American law also has roots in the Napoleonic Code, but we’re not clamoring to erect courthouse monuments to Napoleon.) . . . .



Such an acknowledgment would force the Court to go back and tackle the real question animating these religion cases: Does the Constitution truly erect a “wall” between church and state, or is this, as most citizens maintain, a politically correct overcompensation? Was the intent of the Framers to quarantine all religion from the public square, or was it merely to keep the state from enshrining a single state religion? Is the possibility of a theocracy really viable enough to justify virtually silencing a passionate and vociferous religious majority in this land?"

Favorite quote:

"Having avoided this issue for decades, the Court must now reexamine the carnage left in the wake of its batty establishment clause jurisprudence-a line of cases effectively holding that it's okay for the state to erect Christmas crèches and such on public property, so long as the ratio of Santas to Sponge Bobs in the manger is roughly equivalent."