First: I'm completely in agreement that "emotional knee-jerk reactions are not likely to bring the situation any closer to a profitable resolution," which is why I post them to my journal, rather than sending them to my duly elected representatives. That said, I do enjoy the chance to discuss these issues, so I have no objection to the existence of your response.
Now to rebut some of the content: It's not that the 10 commandments are being presented as a piece of the history of law, it's that they are being used to represent the idea that God, specifically the one who dictated the commandments to Moses, is "the very source of our rights and liberties and the very source of our law" which is certainly a valid opinion for an individual to hold, but a disastrous one for the state as an entity to hold, in that it implies that those who do not share faith in that source of rights and liberties may not be entitled to them. As a non-Christian, this is terrifying to me. Hence my remark about rule of the majority. I've known plenty of non-Christians living in Alabama, and the last thing the Supreme Justice of the state should be saying is "this nation was founded upon the laws of God." They have enough to worry about without having their recourse to the law threatened.
Re: A contrarian opinion
First: I'm completely in agreement that "emotional knee-jerk reactions are not likely to bring the situation any closer to a profitable resolution," which is why I post them to my journal, rather than sending them to my duly elected representatives. That said, I do enjoy the chance to discuss these issues, so I have no objection to the existence of your response.
Now to rebut some of the content:
It's not that the 10 commandments are being presented as a piece of the history of law, it's that they are being used to represent the idea that God, specifically the one who dictated the commandments to Moses, is "the very source of our rights and liberties and the very source of our law" which is certainly a valid opinion for an individual to hold, but a disastrous one for the state as an entity to hold, in that it implies that those who do not share faith in that source of rights and liberties may not be entitled to them. As a non-Christian, this is terrifying to me. Hence my remark about rule of the majority. I've known plenty of non-Christians living in Alabama, and the last thing the Supreme Justice of the state should be saying is "this nation was founded upon the laws of God." They have enough to worry about without having their recourse to the law threatened.