Contemplate the true insanity of this. Private owners are, of course, entitled to put whatever they want on their property, and if they really want to go ahead with doing this, I’m fine with letting them (aside from the potential issue of the government selling them the land with a specific religious promotion purpose, but that’s a hurdle on the way to the end result, and its the end result that is what’s so phenomenaly insane). But the whole point of this plan is to “fake” a government endorsement of a secretarian religion. It doesn’t even make sense. They can already put up a zillion ten commandment monuments on any private property they want. They can even put up historical or civic displays that include the ten commandments. But no: what they HAVE to have are the ten commandments out in front a courthouse to make it APPEAR that it’s the ruling principle of the court… even though it’s not and the whole thing is a sham.
And hey, people are probably dumb enough for it to work, to believe that such monuments are government endorsed. This could catch on if it works. But geez: it’s like the beginning of the end for scraping the bottom of barrel in stupidity.
Someone please buy the plot of land right next to it and erect a large statue of Charles Darwin right next to it.
If it’s just an issue of freedom of speech on private property then they should have no problem with it.
I would be equally happy with a statue of Karl Marx, not that it has anything to do with the matter, but it would be terribly funny and I’m sure lots of people would want it removed.
No, he just seems to be a favourite object of scorn for a lot of the fundies, so it would probably get their panties in a wad to have his statue there.
I picked him because I keep seeing those plaques on peoples’ cars here with the big TRUTH fish eating the Darwin fish, so I figure they’ve got some kind of grudge.
Heck, let’s just throw up a bunch of religious symbols. We’ll have a nice lil mall of gods that you have to pass through to get to any court building. We can put up a mosque and a big ole buddha. Heck, we can even drag out Odin or Zeus.
And just to make it clear that religion isn’t influencing our courts, we can erect a statue of Satan in the buddy christ mold (shyte eating grin and thumbs up) with a plaque underneath saying “Murder is a-ok with me.”
A judge ruled they can’t display the ten commandments in front of the courthouse due to seperation of church and state a while back.
Religious peoples can’t live with that decision, so they buy some private land so they can just put it right back where it was and basically go “Neener neener, we got it there anyway and you can’t do anything about it now.” It’s THAT important to them that they need to get the monument there, that they go to this much trouble.
Now, based on past behaviour, what’s the grudge in pointing out they’d probably give themselves a hernia over some other monument placed just as prominently and equally as their Bible-monument, using the exact same justifications to do this? Hell, I pulled Darwin (because of all the recent evolution flap) or Marx off the top of my head (yay for an evil socialist in front of the courthouse!), but you could just as well put a statue of part of the Quran or Vishnu or Buddy Christ or anything else that doesn’t jive with their worldview there. It really isn’t relevant.
I know they can dish it out, I want to see if they can take it. I’ll bet you dollars to donuts they’d find some way to justify either not allowing another group to buy the land in the first place, or forcing them to take their monument down. I welcome someone to prove me wrong.
The issue’s come up before (warning: site has odd floating popup) and a decision in a Wisconsin case was issued about two weeks ago, finding a similar sale of park land constitutional. Notable is this from the decision:
So in the 7th Circuit at least, the sale contemplated in the OP’s link would apparently be unconstitutional. What if any notice courts in the 6th Circuit would take of the 7th Circuit decision is unknown.
I cannot understand why it is so important to have the Ten Commandments put up anywhere except in a Sunday School room.
One could have the Commandments on every corner, the world would not be a better place. If people that believe the commandments are from God,all they have to do is keep them. People do not break the commandments because they do not know them.
Since the Constitution protects the minority, the rules of all religions would have to be put up in Public and State buildings along with the commandments.
I wonder why the people that want them displayed are afraid that if everyone doesn’t believe their way then maybe they are wrong?
Monavis
If (as I suppose) it has to be open bids, just collect donations from members of the Church of the SubGenius, Lovecraft fan clubs, various neo-pagans, and assorted groups and outbid Myler with some ridiculous amount of cash. Then put up a granite block inscribed
An you harm none, do as you will.
Give me slack.
You will be eaten first.
Personally, I think that a good move would be to send out evangelists to convert all these people for whom the Ten Commandments are the focal point of their religion* to Christianity.
Hell, lets just accept the 10 commandments as law and then arrest anyone who works, drives, and plays or watches sports (including NASCAR) on saturday. Then we can arrest everyone who votes against SS because it dishonors parents, and then everone who commits adultery, and everone who buys an SUV because they were jealous their neighbors had one, and everyone who says G-d Damn.
