I couldn’t find a cite for this, so if anyone else finds one, please feel free to post a link.
I’m not sure how far this story has gone, so here’s some background info first:
The Chester County Courthouse located in West Chester, PA has on it a plaque of the 10 Commandments placed prominantly near the front entrance.
Recently, a West Chester resident has argued for the removal of the plaque saying that it clearly violates the Constitutional Amendment promising separation of church and state.
The other side of the argument is that the plaque should be looked at as a historical landmark of sorts. Removing it would be equivalent to destroying a piece of history.
Personally, I sympathize with both sides. I am a firm believer that religion should have no part whatsoever in government. But at the same time, the whole town of West Chester has a very rich historical background. The plaque stands for more than just what is written on it. It is also reflective of the strong religious tone of the time period in which the Courthouse was built.
While the case in the article does have a lot in common with the case in West Chester, it differs in one major way:
The pillar was erected very recently while the plaque was, AFAIK, placed on the building decades ago when the building itself was built.
It’s much easier to authorize taking down something that hasn’t been around very long than it is to authorize taking down something that has, through the passing of time, taken on a historical significance.
I live in Chester County as well, DoperChic, and it perturbs me that my tax dollars will be supporting what is almost certain to be a failed appeal. Yes, I know they say that no county dollars will be used, but just the time that county officials are spending on this is ludicrous.
In today’s story in the Inquirer, the judge is quoted as saying:
My take on this is to either drop the appeal and stop throwing good money after bad, or use the money to put some additional plaques up that will put the existing plaque into a context that gives it constitutional protection.
If the plaque has an historical significance (which the West Chester one does) then I say leave it up. No harm there. Granted, it should never have been put up in the first place, but it’s taken the United States a long time to make substantial progress toward the separation of church and state, which we’ve too frequently paid mere lip service to in the past.
No new Ten Commandments plaques, though. We’ve seen enough.
You know, the whole public-display-of-the-Ten Commandments debate could be brought down by one group pushing to have a Ten Commandments display removed because they want to put one up that places them in the Catholic order, and not the typical Protestant order. (Catholics, for example, place “Thou shalt not commit adultery” as the sixth commandment, where Protestants place it as the fifth, I believe. Or the seventh; I can’t remember.) That might drive home just what silliness the display of the Ten Commandments on government property is.
Or we could post the ten that are found in Exodus 34 and have a good laugh about not boiling kids in their mother’s milk. A commandment like that would sure stop school violence and make lawbreakers step into line - hoo boy!
Exactly what historical signicance does the Chester County plaque have, anyway? “Commemorating 82 years of violations of the Establishment Clause!”?
I’m also a little dubious that you can “sanitize” what amounts to the state telling citizens what God to worship and how and when to worship him by pasting up copies of the Magna Carta and (irony of ironies) the Bill of Rights.
Just to clarify, the 10 Commandments in Indianapolis are new, but they’d replace the tower that was vandalized a few years back - it had been up for a very long time.
My opinion: Take them all down. The Lemon Test, which is typically used to determine similar problems, has three determinants:
Is there a secular purpose?
Is the primary purpose religious?
Is there excessive entanglement?
If the secular purpose of “historical significance” really is of a large magnitude, maybe that tablet belongs in a museum. I don’t think the primary purpose for displaying the 10 C.'s is religious, it was intended as symbolic and has developed an historical element. But there is entanglement issues. Regardless of the history, it’s still a state endorsement of a religious ideal, and not just an endorsement of an ideal that religion shares.
As far as the historical value is concerned, I am not sure that any desirable message would be conveyed by leaving them up without any interpretation.
What do you think would be perceived by someone seeing them the first time they walked in the courthouse?
-Would they necessarily realize that they are merely a historical artifact celebrating the long and diverse history of the county?
-Would they realize that such things as the public posting of the Big 10 is one of many things that were commonly done in the past which are no longer considered appropriate?
I’m not sure it is desirable to retain inappropriate public vestiges of our ancestors’ intolerance for purposes other than to educate present citizens and encourage to better action. In short, I see a reasonably foreseeable harm from keeping the plaque - someone could reasonably believe a specific religion underlies the justice offered in the building.
And I do not see an outweighing benefit. Is it necessary that Jews and Christians are reminded of the historical relevance of their beliefs?
Moreover, I see any number of alternatives (such as posting the plaque in a church or a museum), which might not be quite as reassuring to faithful Jews and Christians, would not run the risk of suggesting disparate treatement to nonbelievers. While it might be possible to post additional messages stressing the historical significance, or surrounding the Big 10 with messages from various other religions and istorical periods, that all seems unnecessarily convoluted for negligible benefit.
Around Christmastime, the same Courthouse in question also had Christmas lawn ornaments displayed prominantly on their lawn. Included were angels, Santa Claus, and others that I can’t remember.
For a government building that is supposed to remain totally neutral on the issue of religion, Christmas lawn ornaments hardly seem to do just that.