You know what? This whole episode started with a decision of controversial legality, but it has become the circus it has become due to an overreaction to that decision followed by an overreaction to that overreaction.
Like it or not, the Ten Commandments have had a significant influence on law and legal history, not to mention ethical practice in civil life (which is also a big contributor to law and order). For that matter, other religious history and/or religion has had a positive influnce on law and legal thinking (cf Wilberforce and opposition to slavery). The influence of the Ten Commandments historically seems commensurate to me with the Arabic use of the number 0 in the field of mathematics; if you really wanted to, you could ignore its effects, but you couldn't escape them.
But the legality is controversial; the handful of people who actually voiced a complaint were lawyers, and they should know. Personally, I'm not as convinced it's against the letter of the law with respect to church and state as some of you are. The separation of church and state is present to safeguard against bias and favoritism with respect to particular organized religion. It is not a dictate that the US government is to be atheistic, but that it is to be "apathetically agnostic" - "we don't know which religion if any is correct and we don't care." If the Ten Commandments have a place in the history of law and jurisprudence, then it may be of dubious political capital (and even wisdom) to memorialize them; but it is not unconstitiutional to do so, if indeed the state is properly invested in the business of memorializing history at all. It is an implicit responosibility of the state to not knowingly misrepresent the truth, and the concerted push to remove the monument borders on total abdication of this responsibility, using one part of the constitution to bash another part (freedom of expression by way of personal choice of monument within the confines of appropriateness to legal history, as part of the mandate of one's job) into submission. The state winds up taking sides by pretending not to take sides, under the guise of avoiding the appearance of discrimination; however, the only way to not take sides with respect to history is to represent it accurately, regardless of who is pleased or offended by it. The lawmakers should leave revisionist history to the pointy-headed intellectuals. Well, them and the artists and entertainers with their craven pseudo-enlightened agendas. (Pocahontas, anyone?)
That being said, the situation of those who oppose the decision wrapping themselves in the banner of the religiously persecuted is counterproductive, as it obscures the issues rather than clarifying them. I understand why they're doing it - the doctrine of separation between church and state has been applied in wrong-headed fashion before, and certain causes they are likely to espouse have also fallen under disfavor in important ways - but emotional knee-jerk reactions are not likely to bring the situation any closer to a profitable resolution.
As for your reactions to the quickvote, isn't it a little presumptuous to ascribe a scary absence of thought (or presence of motives) to people who you do not seem to have made an effort to understand?
Oh, and Cnoocy, I'm in the middle of preparation for a move, so while I haven't finished sitting down to answer your "good question" from the gay marriage thread a while back, I will not forget to do so. I will post back to that thread when I have that done.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Wow.
Cnoocy, you kick butt. I'll go read that newslink now.
no subject
(no subject)
A contrarian opinion
Like it or not, the Ten Commandments have had a significant influence on law and legal history, not to mention ethical practice in civil life (which is also a big contributor to law and order). For that matter, other religious history and/or religion has had a positive influnce on law and legal thinking (cf Wilberforce and opposition to slavery). The influence of the Ten Commandments historically seems commensurate to me with the Arabic use of the number 0 in the field of mathematics; if you really wanted to, you could ignore its effects, but you couldn't escape them.
But the legality is controversial; the handful of people who actually voiced a complaint were lawyers, and they should know. Personally, I'm not as convinced it's against the letter of the law with respect to church and state as some of you are. The separation of church and state is present to safeguard against bias and favoritism with respect to particular organized religion. It is not a dictate that the US government is to be atheistic, but that it is to be "apathetically agnostic" - "we don't know which religion if any is correct and we don't care." If the Ten Commandments have a place in the history of law and jurisprudence, then it may be of dubious political capital (and even wisdom) to memorialize them; but it is not unconstitiutional to do so, if indeed the state is properly invested in the business of memorializing history at all. It is an implicit responosibility of the state to not knowingly misrepresent the truth, and the concerted push to remove the monument borders on total abdication of this responsibility, using one part of the constitution to bash another part (freedom of expression by way of personal choice of monument within the confines of appropriateness to legal history, as part of the mandate of one's job) into submission. The state winds up taking sides by pretending not to take sides, under the guise of avoiding the appearance of discrimination; however, the only way to not take sides with respect to history is to represent it accurately, regardless of who is pleased or offended by it. The lawmakers should leave revisionist history to the pointy-headed intellectuals. Well, them and the artists and entertainers with their craven pseudo-enlightened agendas. (Pocahontas, anyone?)
That being said, the situation of those who oppose the decision wrapping themselves in the banner of the religiously persecuted is counterproductive, as it obscures the issues rather than clarifying them. I understand why they're doing it - the doctrine of separation between church and state has been applied in wrong-headed fashion before, and certain causes they are likely to espouse have also fallen under disfavor in important ways - but emotional knee-jerk reactions are not likely to bring the situation any closer to a profitable resolution.
As for your reactions to the quickvote, isn't it a little presumptuous to ascribe a scary absence of thought (or presence of motives) to people who you do not seem to have made an effort to understand?
Oh, and Cnoocy, I'm in the middle of preparation for a move, so while I haven't finished sitting down to answer your "good question" from the gay marriage thread a while back, I will not forget to do so. I will post back to that thread when I have that done.
Re: A contrarian opinion
Re: A contrarian opinion (part 1, 'cuz I'm over the length limit again.)
Re: A contrarian opinion (part 1, 'cuz I'm over the length limit again.)
Re: A contrarian opinion (part 1, 'cuz I'm over the length limit again.)