Ten Commandments Follow-Up

Well, the meeting mentioned in this blog post went (I suppose) as planned.

From The Trib:

A Monday night rally by the Thou Shall Not Move group in front of the covered Ten Commandments monument at Connellsville Junior High School was followed by the group encouraging the school board not to give up the fight to keep the monument.

“We want to see this all the way through legally,” said the Rev. Ewing Marietta before a group of Thou Shall Not Move members around the boarded-up Ten Commandments monument.

The group held the rally prior to Monday's agenda session of the Connellsville Area School Board.

And again there was the usual practice of changing the subject (subtly) in order to confuse the issue:

Gary Colatch of Connellsville told the board that the argument of separation of church and state is a falsehood. The nation's capital has many religious symbols that remain to this day, he said, recently shown to him by evangelist and historian David Barton.

“In the Capitol Rotunda, there's a painting on the wall, not hanging on the wall, but painted on the wall, of the baptism of Pocahontas,” Colatch said.

Yea, but again we're changing the subject aren't we?  The issue is not the placement of romanticized 19th Century presentations of historical events on public places that just happen to have a religious story to tell but whether the state has the authority to post this in a public school:

The Ten Commandments
I AM the LORD thy God.
I Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

II Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.

III Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Where the Supreme Court has clearly found posting the Ten Commandments at a Public School clearly "impermissible."

I suppose this is why they keep changing the subject.  They have to know they're fighting a losing battle.  The only question is: just how expensive will it end up being?

Ten Commandments Update - Connellsville Edition

It's been a while but what with the warmer weather and a court date approaching I am guessing there'll be more updates like this in the near future.

Though I could be wrong.

Here's the latest from the Tribune-Review:

The Thou Shall Not Move group plans to hold a Ten Commandments rally at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the covered monument located at the Connellsville Junior High School. After the rally, the group plans to attend the Connellsville Area School Board agenda session at 8 p.m. where members will present a special gift to board members for standing up to support the monument.

A court battle to remove the Ten Commandments monument from Connellsville Junior High School began more than a year ago when the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of an atheist who wanted the monument removed and the case remains in the courts.

More specifically, it's the placement of the monument at a public school that's at issue (this becomes important in a minute).

I'd like to point out some of the errors presented by the Trib.  First there's this:

[The Rev. Ewing Marietta, pastor of Liberty Church in Oliver] said the group plans to donate a Ten Commandments monument to a local city or municipality in the future.

“The courts have been on the side of municipalities in this fight,” Marietta said, adding that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Pleasant Grove, Utah in a recent Ten Commandments court case. The American Civil Liberties Union asked the courts to force the municipality to remove a Ten Commandments monument from city property.

“There have been cases where the courts ruled that municipalities could keep Ten Commandments monuments,” Marietta said. “We're hoping that happens in the Connellsville case.”

I'm sorry but the good Reverend has to do his homework better.  The case to which he's referring is Pleasant Grove v Summum which doesn't have much to do (as far as this non-attorney can see) with Ten Commandment monuments erected at public schools but with whether a municipality has to erect any permanent religious monument offered to it if it has erected others.  From the decision:

This case presents the question whether the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment entitles a private group to insist that a municipality permit it to place a permanent monument in a city park in which other donated monuments were previously erected. The Court of Appeals held that the municipality was required to accept the monument because a public park is a traditional public forum. We conclude, however, that although a park is a traditional public forum for speeches and other transitory expressive acts, the display of a permanent monument in a public park is not a form of expression to which forum analysis applies. Instead, the placement of a permanent monument in a public park is best viewed as a form of government speech and is therefore not subject to scrutiny under the Free Speech Clause. [Emphasis added.]

See that?  Nothing about removing a religious monument from a public school.  Even in the Jay Seculow of the conservative ACLJ describes it thusly:

The Court ruled in favor of Pleasant Grove unanimously. In an opinion by Justice Alito, the Court held that when it comes to displaying monuments on public lands -- a historical practice of governments since time immemorial -- the government is the speaker and has the right to “speak for itself,” “say what it wishes,” and “select the views it wants to express.” In other words, the Free Speech Clause doesn’t require the city to display Summum’s Seven Aphorisms because the city displays a Ten Commandments monument.

So the placement of the next sentence in the Trib:

The American Civil Liberties Union asked the courts to force the municipality to remove a Ten Commandments monument from city property.

Is simply incorrect - as the case was never about removing the Decalogue but forcing Pleasant Grove, Utah to accept Summum's "Seven Aphorisms" because it was already there.  Summum is the name of the church that wanted its monument in the same public park as the Ten Commandments, by the way.

That's error #1.

Here's error #2:

“If they take the Ten Commandments away from the kids in the Connellsville School District, I believe they will have no basis to give them any rules to follow,” said Tammy Marietta. “This would take away the foundation of the laws that we have.”

The Pastor's wife, unfortunately, has invalidated their entire argument right there.  If the purpose of the Ten Commandments monument at that Junior High School in Connellsville is to impose some religious instruction, then it's clearly impermissible.

More On The Rev. Marietta Ewing And His Decalog

It's been a while since I blogged on this story and there've been a few developments.

First, let's congratulate the South Connellsville Council for doing the right thing (or at least for not doing the wrong thing)  From Marc Hofmann of The Trib:

Almost a year after the ongoing controversy surrounding the Ten Commandments monument started in Connellsville, South Connellsville council made a decision about an offer to place a monument in the borough.

During Monday's regular meeting, Councilman Clyde Martz said he received communication from the Rev. Ewing Marietta, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church, about placing a Ten Commandments monument at the South Connellsville Honor Roll.

There's Reverend Marietta again. This can't be good.  A few paragraphs later:

South Connellsville had to vote on placing a monument at the honor roll, a borough-owned property.

“We were advised by our solicitor to definitely not do that,” Martz said, adding the advice came from the fact that the issue has not been resolved with the school district in their ongoing legal battle and it would mostly likely end with a lawsuit against the borough. “That will put the borough in risk that we don't need at this time.”

Council unanimously voted against placing the monument at the honor roll. Council President Mark Ward did not attend Monday's meeting.

Good for them.  What's conveniently (and insultingly) left out of Hofmann's reporting is that while it's true that Connellsville's case has not yet been resolved, the question as to whether the Ten Commandments can be posted at a public school has been.  By the United States Supreme Court.  33 years ago:

This is not a case in which the Ten Commandments are integrated into the school curriculum, where the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like. Posting of religious texts on the wall serves no such educational function. If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.

Hofmann's piece implies that the issue of posting the Commandments in a public school "has not been resolved" which is simply untrue.  Not permissible in 1980.  Not permissible now.  Posting The Commandments on private property is not the question here no matter how much goalpost moving is tried.  Something the good reverend doesn't seem to understand.  In a recent letter to the editor, he writes:

Because one person objected to the 1957 Ten Commandments monument at the Connellsville Junior High, residents have been awakened. We are offended because it is God's word. It also is the free-speech rights of the members of the Fraternal Order of Eagles who placed the Decalog, the students, the citizens of Connellsville, Nomalville, Dunbar, Dunbar Township, Bullskin Township, South Connellsville, White, Juanita and every other town in Connellsville Area School District to keep the commandments there. This county is made up of mostly Christians who will not back down, will not sit down and cower to some bully telling us that we cannot tell our children about the Christian heritage of the United States.

Reverend, it's not because "one person objected" and it's not a free-speech issue for those who want to sidestep the Constitution and impose their particular metaphysics onto everyone else.  It's about our secular government being fair to everyone.  Everyone not just the largest group of bullies who are offended because everyone doesn't agree with them.

Doesn't The Lord dislike liars who sow discord in a community?

Ten Commandments Update

I usually don't respond to letters to the editor found in newspapers.  I figure that everyone's entitled to their own opinion (even if I think it's wrong).

However if a public figure writes a letter to the editor about an issue, and especially if I've written about that public figure and/or that issue then I feel free to comment.

Where am I going with this?  Here.

The Rev. Ewing Marietta, Senior Pastor of the Liberty Baptist Church in Union, PA has written a letter to the editor regarding the Ten Commandments monument in Connellsville.  (Should even I bother with an Exodus16:1-36 reference?  Perhaps not.)

In it Pastor Marietta makes a few misrepresentations of the facts.  Most incorrect is this one:

The Constitution has not changed, but now we are not allowed to display the Ten Commandments outside a public building.

While I am not in favor of a such religious display (for example a stand-alone monument depicting the Ten Commandments) "outside of a public building" that's not exactly the issue here.

The issue is that the monument is on public school grounds - and that's unconstitutional.

As I've written before, there is some Supreme Court precedent regarding the Ten Commandments "outside of a public building" but as Justice Breyer points out in his discussion of Van Orden V Perry:

This case, moreover, is distinguishable from instances where the Court has found Ten Commandments displays impermissible. The display is not on the grounds of a public school, where, given the impressionability of the young, government must exercise particular care in separating church and state.

So when the good pastor writes that "The fight is still on to save Connellsville's 10 Commandments monument. We can and must win this case." He's wrong on all counts as the fight is already over.  Public displays of the Ten Commandments are impermissible.

But I want to look at what Pastor Marietta writes next:

Should this monument even be an argument right now? We need moral absolutes more than ever.

Really? Moral absolutism is what we need right now?

Take a look at this:


In the video, Richard Dawkins is asked this question:

My question is for professor Dawkins. Considering that atheism can not possibly have any sense of absolute morality, would it not then be an irrational leap of faith, which atheists themselves so harshly condemn, for an atheist to decide between right and wrong?

And he answers:

Absolute morality - the absolute morality that a religious person might profess would include what? Stoning people for adultery? Death for apostasy?  Punishment for breaking the Sabbath? These are all things which are religiously based absolute moralities. I don't think I want an absolute morality. I think I want a morality that is thought-out, reasoned, argued, discussed and based upon, I'd almost say intelligent design. Can we not design our society, which has the sort of morality, the sort of society that we want to live in?  If you actually look at the moralities that are accepted among modern people, among 21st century people, we don't believe in slavery anymore. We believe in equality of women. We believe in being gentle. We believe in being kind to animals. These are all things which are entirely recent. They have very little basis in Biblical or Quranic scripture. They are things that have developed over historical time through a consensus of reasoning, of sober discussion, argument, legal theory, political and moral philosophy. These do not come from religion. To the extent that you can find the good bits in religious scriptures, you have to cherry pick. You search your way though the Bible or the Quran and you find the occasional verse that is an acceptable profession of morality and you say, "Look at that! That's religion!" and you leave out all the horrible bits and you say, "Oh, we don't believe that anymore. We've grown out of that." Well, of course we've grown out it. We've grown out of it because of secular moral philosophy and rational discussion."

But are those punishments really the case?  Let's take them one by one

• Stoning people for adultery?  Deuteronomy 22:22 says:

  If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

• Death for apostasy? Deuteronomy 13:6-9 says:

  6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. 9 You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people.

• Punishment for breaking the Sabbath? Exodus 35:2 says:

  For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death.

Is this what the good pastor means when he talks about how "we need moral absolutes" now?  It must be - the texts are from The Bible and they are clear as can be.

God, I hope not.

Decalogue Update: Connellsville

From today's Tribune-Review:

The battle between Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation and a plaintiff named Doe 4 in legal papers against the Connellsville Area School District will reach a deadline on April 25.

In the meantime, the Thou Shall Not Move group in Connellsville will meet at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday to honor the Fayette County commissioners and to learn of the latest steps in the plan to place Ten Commandments monuments throughout the community.

I would think that the "plan to place Ten Commandments monuments throughout the community" is a good idea - take a look:

Thou Shall Not Move was formed to raise money for the school district to help with the costs of fighting the lawsuit. Since then, the organization has been selling yard signs with the Ten Commandments on them and started a Ten Commandments monument fund to help local churches place granite Ten Commandment monuments on their properties.

According to Marietta, legal paperwork will be presented and reviewed by legal counsel for those who get a monument.

To my Connellsville friends, I have to say that that is the solution: Move the monument onto private or church property.

Because leaving it at the Junior High in Connellsville is still unconstitutional - regardless of the transparent attempt of the Fayette County Commissioners to skirt the Constitution:

The Rev. Ewing Marietta, a leader for Thou Shall Not Move, said the county commissioners — Al Ambrosini, chairman; Vince Zapotosky, vice chairman; and Angela M. Zimmerlink, secretary — will attend the Wednesday meeting at the Connellsville Eagles on Arch Street.

“We will be honoring them,” Marietta said. “They took a stand and named the Ten Commandments monument (at Connellsville Junior High School) an historic landmark. They've done a bang-up job.”

Which is what they did last December:

The proclamation states, in part, that “the commissioners will stand with those to support the historical designation of this as a historical landmark with all rights and privileges extended to said landmark.

“The Ten Commandments are in the highest court in our land thus it acts as the cornerstone and guide for a country based on the rule of law,” the proclamation continued. “Viewed across time, this granite monument, signifying the rock of American Law and Jurisprudence, has had a profound, positive influence on ‘We the People,' is worthy of preservation for the future generations of this One Nation Under God.””

The only problem with linking the Connellsville public school's monument with what's on the wall of the Supreme Court is this from Steven Breyer.  In his concurring opinion in Van Orden V Perry he contrasted the placement of the Decalogue at barely permissible setting (in Texas, on the Capitol grounds) and he wrote:

This case, moreover, is distinguishable from instances where the Court has found Ten Commandments displays impermissible. The display is not on the grounds of a public school, where, given the impressionability of the young, government must exercise particular care in separating church and state. [Emphasis added.]

I'm not sure the County Commissioners for Fayette County have the authority to redefine what's impermissible.

Move the Ten Commandments monument off of public school grounds.

Kentucky Gets It Right

While perusing World Net Daily (aka birther-central) this morning, I saw this.  The headline reads:

ATHEISTS WIN TEN COMMANDMENTS BATTLE

WND writer Drew Zahn writes:

A Kentucky school district is yanking down multiple displays of the Ten Commandments after an atheist organization sent the county a letter warning the plaques were unconstitutional.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, or FFRF, a Wisconsin-based organization of “freethinkers” – explained on the group’s website as atheists, agnostics and skeptics devoted to spreading nontheism – told Kentucky’s Breathitt County School District it had received complaints about the displays.

Earlier this week, the district agreed to take down the displays, which had reportedly hung on area high school, middle school and several elementary schools’ walls for years.

Here's the letter the FFRF sent to the Breathitt County School District.

WND embeds this coverage of the story from WYMT-TV and in that story there's a telling quotation from a local resident who disagrees with the School Board's decision to take down the Commandments.  Mary Lou Campbell says:

Makes me angry. Because my grandchildren, I want them to have the Christian upbringing.

And so she wants the Ten Commandments to remain hanging in the public schools.

To its credit, the Kentucky Board of Education released this statement:

The display of religious materials, such as a painting of a religious figure or a copy of the Ten Commandments, in a public school violates the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on the establishment or endorsement of religion by a public agency. A school or district that displays copies of the Ten Commandments without the inclusion of other historical documents and not as part of a historical/comparative display is in violation of the U.S. Constitution. See the U.S. Supreme Court's holding on this issue in Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39, 101 S.Ct. 192 (1980). The Kentucky Department of Education's focus in Breathitt County is on student achievement and college and career readiness and using its resources to support those efforts.

The 2012 Kentucky School Laws says that:

No preference shall ever be given by law to any religious sect, society or denomination; nor to any particular creed, mode of worship or system of ecclesiastical polity; nor shall any person be compelled to attend any place of worship, to contribute to the erection or maintenance of any such place, or to the salary or support of any minister of religion; nor shall any man be compelled to send his child to any school to which he may be conscientiously opposed; and the civil rights, privileges or capacities of no person shall be taken away, or in anywise diminished or enlarged, on account of his belief or disbelief of any religious tenet, dogma or teaching. No human authority shall, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience.

And in discussing the unconstitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments on school property, it reads:

Since the pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature, this section has no secular legislative purpose and is therefore unconstitutional as violative of the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution; it does not matter that the posted copies are financed by voluntary private contributions, for the mere posting of the copies under the auspices of the Legislature provides the official support of the state government that the establishment clause prohibits.

Each is correct.  And as a result the unconstitutional displays have been removed - all within a couple of weeks  It's been about 8 months since the FFRF sent letters to two local school districts about theirequally unconstitutional Ten Commandment monuments.  As of right now, those two monuments have yet to be removed.

If Kentucky can get it so right so quickly, why can't New Kensington or Connellsville?

News For This Easter

They're still fighting the good fight in Connellsville over the unconstitutional Ten Commandments monument.

The Rev. Ewing Marietta, a leader for the “Save the Ten Commandments” group in Connellsville, called the battle “ground zero” and said it is time to take a stand.

Marietta made the statement during a meeting Wednesday at the Connellsville Eagles.

Marietta said the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the group that filed a lawsuit to have the Ten Commandments monument removed from the grounds of the Connellsville Junior High, is “trying to destroy our country.”

For those few of you not up to speed on this story, there's a decades old monument in at the Connellsville Junior High School.  It was a gift from the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1957 and it was a PR tie-in to the Cecil B. DeMille epic, The Ten Commandments.

It's also unconstitutional.  I can't stress that enough.  According to the US Supreme Court in 1980, posting the Ten Commandments on public school grounds "has no secular legislative purpose" and is therefore Unconstitutional.  The decision went on to say that:

The pre-eminent purpose of posting the Ten Commandments, which do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, is plainly religious in nature, and the posting serves no constitutional educational function.

So let's take a look at what the good Reverend has had to say about why the Commandments needs to stay on public school grounds in Connellsville:

“Our liberties cannot be taken away. They are a gift from God,” Marietta said. “The Ten Commandments are the basis of our laws. If we don't teach our children about the Ten Commandments, someday they will ask why they have to follow the laws of God and our nation.”

Each one of those statements has a problem.

• Liberties are taken away all the time (whether "gifts" from God or not).  Ask anyone who's in jail.  Or in prison.  You can even extend the argument (albeit it's on a much smaller scale) to anyone boarding a plane or a few decades ago anyone drafted into the Armed Forces.
• According to the Constitution (which fails to mention God at all), the Constitution itself is the Supreme Law of the Land.  If anyone can explain how the commandment "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" or the commandment "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images." or any of the others has anything to do with the Separation of Powers, or the First Amendment's prohibition (even at it's most narrowly drawn) of a State Religion, please let me know.
• It's this last sentence that's the most trouble for the Marietta.  To see why, just flip his argument over: The posting of the Ten Commandments will enable them to understand that they have to follow the laws of God.  How is that possible in a society governed, in part, by this sentence:

  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Unless he was taken out of context (and there's no reason to think this), the Reverend Ewing Marietta wants the Connellsville school district to impose one particular religious idea onto the entire student body.

This is surprising to me (as I've written before) as his own church's website, on a page titled "What We Believe", in a section describing "Religious Liberty" we read:

Church and state should be separate. The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. In providing for such freedom no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by the state more than others.

And:

The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work.

And yet, this is precisely what Marietta wants.  He's free to preach all he wants about the value of the Commandments but he's not free to use the civil authorities to amplify his message to anyone else.

Religious Freedom Update

According to this poll, done by the Barna Group, there's something very interesting going on in one segment of American society.

Huffington Post has the summary:

Half of Americans worry that religious freedom in the U.S. is at risk, and many say activist groups -- particularly gays and lesbians -- are trying to remove "traditional Christian values" from the public square.

No that's not it.

The findings of a poll published Wednesday (Jan. 23), reveal a "double standard" among a significant portion of evangelicals on the question of religious liberty, said David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group, a California think tank that studies American religion and culture.

Getting closer, but that's not it, either.

While these Christians are particularly concerned that religious freedoms are being eroded in this country, "they also want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture," said Kinnamon.

THERE IT IS.

I touched on this a few times last year (here and here) but it's good to see some numbers supporting the same idea.  So what are the numbers?  From Barna:

Though most Americans agree religious freedoms should be granted to people of all faiths, there are still a significant number of people (23%) who believe traditional Judeo-Christian values should be given preference in the public square. The majority, though, would disagree: two-thirds of Americans (66%) say there’s no one set of values that should dominate the country and another 11% of adults declined or gave another response. Practicing Catholics (24%) are about on par with the national average, while practicing Protestants (35%) and evangelicals (54%) are above average in selecting traditional Judeo-Christian values.

But take a closer look at that first sentence.  First, let me quote some well known conservative rhetoric and point out that freedoms aren't granted they're to be protected or limited.  But that aside, shouldn't the religious freedoms of everyone (not just "people of all faiths") be protected?  I realize this could be just some sloppy writing so let's assume that I am seeing something that's not there.  But what does that leave us?

Between a fifth and a quarter of the American population believes in "religious freedom" while still paradoxically believing that "traditional Judeo-Christian values" should dominate the culture.

People like these people in Connellsville:

Thou Shalt Not Move, a grassroots group, urged the Connellsville area to continue to support efforts to keep the Ten Commandments Monument at the Connellsville Junior High School.

More specifically:

“We are under attack on a national level and this issue, as small as it seems to some, is as big as the right to bear arms and Obamacare where they’re taking the right to health care away from you,” [Meeting organizer Gary] Colatch said. “They’re trying to strip away our rights. We’re facing that tyranny today. We’re facing that tyranny in Connellsville.” [Emphasis added.]

Again, it's a Ten Commandments monument at a public school.  It's unconstitutional.  Mr Colatch is looking to protect a religious right that he doesn't actually have: the "right" to use the public school system to impose his faith onto others.

Meanwhile, there's been some movement at that other unconstitutional monument (the one in New Kensington):

A federal district judge on Tuesday denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a Wisconsin-based group against a school district in Westmoreland County regarding its display of a Ten Commandments monument.

And:

The arguments to dismiss the cases filed on behalf of the school districts were similar, specifically referring to the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Van Orden v. Perry.

We've looked at Van Orden before.

Here's the judge's denial of the motion to dismiss.

On hearing news of the denial, Rev. Ewing Marietta had this to say:

A federal district judge on Tuesday denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a Wisconsin-based group against a school district in Westmoreland County regarding its display of a Ten Commandments monument.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) sued both the New Kensington-Arnold School District and the Connellsville Area School District over displays of the Ten Commandments posted outside schools in each district. The New Kensington-Arnold suit was filed first, and there is a decision pending on a motion to dismiss the Connellsville suit.

“This may not be the best news for us,” Marietta said. [Emphasis added.]

Sorry to hear that you're disappointed, Reverend.

On the other hand, it's always a good news when everyone's religious freedom is being protected.

Connellsville Ten Commandments Update

Lawyers for the Freedom From Religion Foundation have filed a "Brief in Opposition to Defendant's Motion To Dismiss" a few days ago.

You can read it here.

Let's take a few steps back and look at the motion they're opposing.  Liz Zemba of The Trib writes this:

In seeking to dismiss the case, attorneys for the school district argued, among other reasons, that the monument should stay because it is more secular than religious. Courts in other cases found that similar monuments on government-owned property do not violate the establishment clause, they argued, including one at the Texas State Capitol that survived a Supreme Court challenge.

This requires some explanation.  Whereas I (a non-attorney if ever there was one) tend to think that the issue's been settled by Stone V Graham, there's another Supreme Court case upon which the school district's attorney's are relying - Van Orden V Perry.  Here's what happened: in 2004 two very similar cases were decided before the Supreme Court, Van Orden v Perry and McCreary County, Kentucky v. ACLU of Kentucky and the Supremes held that the former display constitutional and the latter unconstitutional.

Justice Breyer was the "swing" vote in the sense that his was the only vote that changed between the two cases.

From the District's earlier brief:

In the plurality opinion finding no Establishment Clause violation, Chief Justice Rehnquist, (joined by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas), provided that the Court’s Establishment Clause analysis would be “driven both by the nature of the monument and by our Nation’s history.” Acknowledging the history and significance of the Ten Commandments, the Court distinguished the “passive use” of the Eagles’ Ten Commandments monument by the State of Texas from the impermissible use of the text by the State of Kentucky, which had mandated by statute that the text be posted inside every public classroom. Id. at 691 (distinguishing Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980)). After a detailed discussion of our Nation’s history regarding the use of the Ten Commandments and other religious symbols, Chief Justice Rehnquist, with a fifth vote from Justice Breyer concurring in the judgment, concluded that the State did not violate the Establishment Clause by its display of the Eagles’ Ten Commandments monument on Capitol grounds. (“We cannot say that Texas’ display of this monument violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment”) (Emphasis added).

Justice Breyer, concurring in the judgment, agreed that the text of the Ten Commandments conveys a religious message, but cautioned, as did Chief Justice Rehnquist, that focusing on the religious nature of the message alone cannot resolve an Establishment Clause. Instead, the context in which the text is used must also be considered. According to Justice Breyer, the State of Texas displayed the monument on its Capitol to communicate both a secular and a religious message. Id. He concluded, however, that the “circumstances surrounding the display’s placement on the Capitol grounds and its physical setting suggest that the State” intended the secular aspects of the monument’s message to predominate, despite the monument’s religious content. (Breyer, J., concurring in judgment).

(Let me state that the "Emphasis added" above is in the brief. It's not my note.)

From Breyer's concurring opinion in Van Orden we read:

The case before us is a borderline case. It concerns a large granite monument bearing the text of the Ten Commandments located on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol. On the one hand, the Commandments' text undeniably has a religious message, invoking, indeed emphasizing, the Deity. On the other hand, focusing on the text of the Commandments alone cannot conclusively resolve this case. Rather, to determine the message that the text here conveys, we must examine how the text is used. And that inquiry requires us to consider the context of the display.

So it's the context of the placement of the monument that defines it's constitutionality.  And from this, it's my guess that Connellsville is looking to establish the context of the monuments as secular.  If they can establish that, then Van Orden is the Case to use in their argument.

The only problem is what Breyer wrote elsewhere in this opinion:

This case, moreover, is distinguishable from instances where the Court has found Ten Commandments displays impermissible. The display is not on the grounds of a public school, where, given the impressionability of the young, government must exercise particular care in separating church and state.

All this was in my talk a few weeks ago before the Center for Inquiry (a talk which most of you missed, by the way).  Imagine my relief when what I said at that talk isn't much in conflict with this week's Brief in Opposition.

Whew.

From the brief:

Justice Breyer’s concurring opinion also highlights the distinction between public school grounds and other government property. At the outset, Justice Breyer focused on the particular context of the Texas Capitol monument and called Van Orden “a borderline case.” Id. at 700. Justice Breyer distinguished the Texas Capitol display from the public school context: “This case, moreover, is distinguishable from instances where the Court has found Ten Commandments displays impermissible. The display is not on the grounds of a public school, where, given the impressionability of the young, government must exercise particular care in separating church and state.” Id. at 703. (citing Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 592; Stone, 449 U.S. at 39). In its Brief, the Defendant purports to explain away this statement by Justice Breyer by conjuring up hidden meaning. Def. Brief, p. 14- 15. According to the Defendant’s memorandum, “For it was not merely the school setting that Justice Breyer was arguably recognizing as distinguishable, but the manipulative, coercive, and restraining conduct by the State evidenced in Lee.” Id. There is no support for this bald assertion. Justice Breyer’s statement specifically distinguished Van Orden from a display “on the grounds of a public school” with no mention of further conduct by the government.

Whew, as I said.

This religious monument currently stands on the grounds of a public school and there is simply no way to describe it with any other word than this one: UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

New Kensington Ten Commandments Monument Update

Just as there's a Facebook page supporting the (still unconstitutional) Ten Commandments monument in Connellsville, there's now a Facebook page calling for the removal of the (equally unconstitutional) Ten Commandments monument in New Kensington.

From the description:

This purpose of this group is to show support and solidarity for plaintiffs in Freedom From Religion Foundation v. New Kensington-Arnold School District, a federal lawsuit currently before the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Plaintiffs object to a stone monument depicting the 10 Commandments prominently displayed in front of Valley High School, a public school in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.

Such displays show overt favoritism for Christianity on behalf of the government and violate the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment as applied to the states via the 14th Amendment, as found by the United States Supreme Court in Stone v. Graham.

Anyone know if there's a similar facebook page for the monument in Connellsville?

More On Connellsville's Ten Commandments Monument

The case is proceeding. From the Union Herald:

The display of a Ten Commandments monument donated 55 years ago outside one of its schools is not an endorsement of religion by the Connellsville Area School District, an attorney argued Monday in court filings.

“Considering the ‘history and ubiquity’ of this Eagles’ Ten Commandments monument, and assessing how a reasonable person would view it, it is clear that the monument does not convey a message of endorsement of religion. (T)he monument contains both religious and secular symbols, including an all-seeing eye, a bald eagle and the American flag. Even if the religions aspects of the monument’s appearance and history indicate that it has some religious meaning, the district is not bound to display only symbols that are wholly secular, or to convey solely secular messages,” attorney John W. Smart wrote in a court filing requesting a dismissal of the lawsuit filed against the district.

The attorney for the Connellsville School District, John W. Smart, filed a Motion to Dismiss the case and a Brief in Support of the Motion - I am reading them now.  I downloaded it from the PACER system available to anyone who registers for an account.  There's a small downloading fee involved so I am unsure as to whether I can post the brief.  If there are ANY ATTORNEYS out there who can offer up some guidance, please get in contact with me.

At this initial reading it looks like Smart is trying to establish that the Connellsville monument allowable under the Constitution because on page 28 it reads:

Considering the “history and ubiquity” of this Eagles’ Ten Commandments monument, and assessing how a reasonable person would view it, it is clear that the monument does not convey a message of endorsement of religion..

And on page 29 there's this:

The District has displayed the monument outside of the Connellsville Junior High School for at least fifty-five years. The location and presence for so many years, emphasizes the perception by most that the monument has an overall secular purpose. The monument conveys a historical and moral message, not a promotion of religious faith.

I am not sure, however, how a monument that begins with the text:

the Ten Commandments
I AM the LORD thy God.
I Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

II Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.

III Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Is anything but an endorsement of religion and a promotion of religious faith.

As I am preparing to discuss this as part of the Center for Inquiry's monthly lecture series, I'll be returning to this very very soon.

Just so everyone is absolutely sure, I am not an attorney, never attended law school, never sat in on a law school lecture and so on.  Any opinions I have about this are those of an average (if balding and plumpish) guy who's reading the legal texts as a non-attorney would.

More On Marty Griffin

I got into it today with KDKA's Marty Griffin.

He was ranting on about the so-called "War on Christmas" and how the "wimps from Wisconsin" (aka the Freedom From Religion Foundation) are wasting everyone's time and money suing to get the Ten Commandment monument in Connellsville removed.

We've already argued that the monument is unconstitutional.

In an email exchange, Griffin wrote back and changed the subject by talking about how The Commandments are on the wall at the City County Building downtown - therefore posting them at a school is OK.  I had to remind him that I was writing about posting them at a school and that the Supreme Court already decided this decades ago.

Changing the subject is a way to admit that you don't have a winning argument.

More On Connellsville's Unconstitutional Monument

Ah...the Cavalry's coming to town.  Still won't help.  The monument's still unconstitutional.

From today's Trib:

The Connellsville area community continues to rally in support of keeping the Ten Commandments monument on property located at Connellsville Junior High School.

The Values Bus, sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council, will be rolling into Uniontown and Connellsville this weekend as part of the Your Money, Your Values, Your Vote 2012 Tour.

On Saturday, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., a Citizen’s Forum will be held at Liberty Baptist Church on 183 Oliver Road in Uniontown.

The forum will feature a question and answer session. Genevieve Wood of The Heritage Foundation and Bob Morrison of the Family Research Council, as well as local elected officials, will speak.

Of course not one mention of the millions Trib-owner Richard Mellon Scaife's given to the Heritage Foundation.

I want to go in a slightly different direction on this blog post.  USUALLY I just quote the thirty year old Supreme Court decision and let it go at that.  But this time, let's look at what the monument's supporters are actually saying - what they actually want.

Let's start here:

Ewing Marietta, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church, has been leading community support to keep the monument on school property.

He and local businessman Gary Colatch have organized several prayer meetings and have set up an account to accept funds to fight legal action and to erect a few more Ten Commandments monuments throughout the city. They also have organized the making of Ten Commandments yard signs and T-shirts for sale.

“The Family Research Council already hits on a lot of the subjects that we’re dealing with, and when they heard about our situation, they said they wanted to get involved,” Marietta said. “Their stance on the issue is that the Ten Commandments are the basis of all our laws, and they’ve dealt with some of the same issues before.”

I found this curious. Because when I checked out the Liberty Baptist Church's website, I found this (on a page tagged "What We Believe"):

God alone is Lord of the conscience, and He has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are contrary to His Word or not contained in it. Church and state should be separate. The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. In providing for such freedom no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by the state more than others. Civil government being ordained of God, it is the duty of Christians to render loyal obedience thereto in all things not contrary to the revealed will of God. The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work. The gospel of Christ contemplates spiritual means alone for the pursuit of its ends. The state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind. The state has no right to impose taxes for the support of any form of religion. A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal, and this implies the right of free and unhindered access to God on the part of all men, and the right to form and propagate opinions in the sphere of religion without interference by the civil power. [Emphases added.]

And yet they're looking to the "civil power" to instruct those public school students the proper way to view God.  The fact that the numbering and the text of the monument more closely matches the Catholic "version" of the Decalogue is evidence, in fact, that indeed one ecclesiastical group is being favored by the state.

Even if it weren't paraphrasing the Roman Catholic Catechism, it would still be favoring religion over non-religion.

And that's still unconstitutional.

Let me end with a full throated defense of real religious liberty:

We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson, for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.

At the same time that our Constitution prohibits state establishment of religion, it protects the free exercise of all religions. And walking this fine line requires government to be strictly neutral.

Posting the Ten Commandments at a public high school in order to make sure that all the students there are exposed to a particular religious idea is hardly neutral.

Know who made that full throated defense of government neutrality regarding faith?  Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States of America.

Connellsville Lawyers Up

In the protracted agitation surrounding the unconstitutional placement of the 10 Commandments on school grounds in Connellsville, PA, there's some news:

Connellsville Area School Board members agreed on Wednesday night to appoint Andrews and Price LLC of Pittsburgh as special legal counsel in the legal battle over the Ten Commandments monument located near Connellsville Junior High.

They've lawyered up.

And I think they got some bad advice:

While there were a few dozen people who attended the board meeting to show support for the monument, Jeff Zito of Apollo was the only individual who spoke during public comment.

Zito told board members he read of the issue in the newspaper and was facing the same issue in New Kensington, which is near his hometown.

“You might say it’s just a monument, but if you let a secular organization win in our own hometown, what will happen when they come back again — and they will,” Zito said.

“I’m here in the opposition of the removal of the Ten Commandments monument.

“If you decide to fight and allow them to take you to court, realize that these battles have been won before,” he added.

Um, I don't think they have (but I could be wrong).  I'd think that since the Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that posting the Ten Commandments in a public school has no secular legislative purpose and therefore violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, these battles are pretty much pointless.  Expensive and pointless.

But what do I know?  I'm not a lawyer.

More On Connellsville's Unconstitutional Monument

From TAE this afternoon:

An atheist and agnostic group filed a federal lawsuit against the Connellsville Area School District over a large plaque of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the junior high school.

Currently, the five-foot monument is covered by a wooden board. A school district attorney declined to comment, but many residents have asked the district to fight requests to remove it.

The nearby Connellsville Church of God has offered to prominently display the monument and light it up at night.

The Rev. Nelson Confer told WTAE Channel 4 Action News that there's a deal to allow the school to use church property although they don't own it.

However, the lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation also seeks to prevent the monument from being displayed by the church because it's next to some school athletic fields and might be seen by students.

As I wrote sometime ago, this monument is unconstitutional.

And that's not a "Rand Paul deciding what's unconstitutional despite being completely at odds with a Supreme Court decision" sort of assertion.  It's the actual Supreme Court saying that displays of the 10 Commandments on public school grounds is unconstitutional.

But take a look at those last two paragraphs from TAE.

Depending on what they actually mean, it could be troubling.  I've written that the monument should be moved to the church grounds.  What's all this about preventing the church from displaying the commandments on church grounds?

That's the troubling part.  If it's church property, the church should be able to do whatever they wanted with it.  Point it in whatever direction they want to point it in.

Here's what the lawsuit has to say about it.  From the Introduction:

Since 1957, the Connellsville Area School District (“District”) has maintained a monument of the Ten Commandments in front of one of its schools in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. District students come into contact with the monument while attending or visiting Connellsville Area Junior High School. The Plaintiffs seek a declaration that the District practice of displaying the Ten Commandments in front of its public school is unconstitutional, an injunction requiring the Ten Commandments to be moved away from public school property, nominal damages, and attorneys’ fees and costs.  [Emphasis added.]

The confusion, I think, comes from this part:

40. Upon information and belief, the District received or solicited an offer from Connellsville Church of God to accept the monument and display it next to Connellsville Area Senior High School.

41. Upon information and belief, the proposed arrangements with Connellsville Church of God would place the Ten Commandments monument on the edge of the Church of God property, which borders the high school and one of its athletic fields.

42. Upon information and belief, the District rents and uses an athletic field owned by the Connellsville Church of God. The church field borders a Connellsville Area Senior High School athletic field. [Emphasis added.]

And this part from the end which almost matches the text of the introduction:

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs respectfully request the following relief from this Honorable Court:

A. A declaration that the Defendants’ maintenance, display, and presence of the Ten Commandments monument on District property is unconstitutional;

B. A permanent injunction directing the District to remove the Ten Commandments and requiring that the Ten Commandments monument not be relocated near District property, including Connellsville Area Junior High School, Connellsville Senior High School, and other property utilized by the District; [Emphasis added.]

Ah - "other property utilized by the District".  That would be, I take it, the land rented by the District and owned by the Church and used as an athletic field.

I still think this is iffy.  If it's church property, the church can do what it wants with it.

Though a clue might be found in the penultimate sentence from TAE's reporting:

The Rev. Nelson Confer told WTAE Channel 4 Action News that there's a deal to allow the school to use church property although they don't own it. [Emphasis added.]

The District is still banned from pushing a non-secular set of ideas onto the school students.  That being said, the District should not be "using" church property to push religion onto its students.

This is echoed, actually, from something from the law suit:

Arrangements to move the Ten Commandments monument to the Connellsville Church of God so that it is in direct view of District students, including students who cannot avoid it when playing on athletic fields, would have the primary effect of advancing religion.

Yea, still iffy. But if The District is moving the monument to the church to advance religion then it's wrong. If the District is moving the monument from school grounds to the church in order to avoid any more constitutional entanglements, allowing the church to do with it want it will, then I guess it's not.

That last part's for the judge to decide.

In any event the monument still has to go.

Justice Delayed, As They Say...

And yet yesterday:

The Connellsville Area school board voted to unanimously tonight to delay making any decisions about what to do with a controversial Ten Commandments monument.

But the only real decision to be made is when to move it because keeping it on school grounds is clearly unconstitutional.

So it has to be moved.

Let's dig deeper into why the placement of the monument is unconstitutional.

Here, again, is Stone v Graham:

The pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature. The Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and no legislative recitation of a supposed secular purpose can blind us to that fact. The Commandments do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, such as honoring one's parents, killing or murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, and covetousness. See Exodus 20: 12-17; Deuteronomy 5: 16-21. Rather, the first part of the Commandments concerns the religious duties of believers: worshipping the Lord God alone, avoiding idolatry, not using the Lord's name in vain, and observing the Sabbath Day. See Exodus 20: 1-11; Deuteronomy 5: 6-15.

This is not a case in which the Ten Commandments are integrated into the school curriculum, where the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like. Posting of religious texts on the wall serves no such educational function. If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.

Not permissible.

This was decided in 1980 - before many of you were even born.

A Proper Home For The Ten Commandments

It's a Church, of course.

From the Trib:

If members of the Connellsville Church of God have their way, not only will they accept a Ten Commandments monument from a public school, they will display it on the edge of their property and light it up at night for all to see.

It'll now be on church property, where it's supposed to be.

Now about the still unconstitutional Ten Commandments monument in New Kensington...when can it be moved?

Thou Shalt Not Violate The Constitution

There's another unconstitutional Ten Commandments monument in the area?

A few months ago I wrote about the Ten Commandments monument at the High School in New Kensington, PA.  By the way, that monument has yet to be been taken down - even though it still violates the Constitution.

New Kensington should do the right thing, respect the religious freedom of all its citizens by not taking any sides - New Kensington needs to remove the monument because it's unconstitutional.

Just like the one in Connellsville:

Some people in the small Fayette County town of Connellsville misjudged a 55-year-old monument at the junior high -- if they saw it at all.

Several thought the 5-foot-tall slab, located outdoors near the auditorium, was a war memorial. Others, including a former teacher at the school, didn't know it was there.

But somebody noticed, enough to contact a Pittsburgh law firm last month and demand the school district remove the Ten Commandments.

They said it violates the constitutional requirement of a separation between church and state.

Well, it does - even if no one's noticed it in years.

I am not sure if she knows this, but Molly Born, the staff writer who wrote that in the P-G, stumbled over an interesting piece of history:

Now the marble monument, which district superintendent Dan Lujetic likened to the stone tablets in the 1956 Charlton Heston movie of the same name, is covered by plywood and will have a new home off school property in the next few weeks. [emphasis added.]

Does anyone know what Born's stumbled over?

How about the fact that the now-unconstitutional monuments were, in fact, a publicity stunt for that very same Charlton Heston movie?  From Moment Magazine:

To promote the film, DeMille—who served on the board of the anti-Communist National Committee for a Free Europe—teamed up with a Minnesota judge named E.J. Ruegemer, a member of a Christian service organization called the Fraternal Order of Eagles (FOE). Starting in 1951, Ruegemer had spearheaded a movement to distribute copies of the Ten Commandments for public placement in courtrooms and schools, believing that “if mankind would heed those Ten, it would be a better world in which to live.” At least 10,000 prints had already been distributed when DeMille joined the cause, helping dozens of local FOE groups raise money to erect statues of the Ten Commandments. Ruegemer, DeMille, Heston and Brynner attended dedications for many of the 150 granite Ten Commandment monoliths that were constructed in 34 states and Canada. It was great publicity for the film, which grossed around $80 million and remains the fifth-highest grossing film of all time in inflation-adjusted terms. [emphasis added.]

This is confirmed by T. Jeffry Gunn in his book, Spiritual Weapons.  In fact, to help pay for the monuments, Gunn writes, Paramount Pictures took some of the proceeds from the tickets to the movie sold by FOE members and funneled it back to them.

Here's what the United States Supreme Court wrote in 1980:

Held:

A Kentucky statute requiring the posting of a copy of the Ten Commandments, purchased with private contributions, on the wall of each public school classroom in the State has no secular legislative purpose, and therefore is unconstitutional as violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. While the state legislature required the notation in small print at the bottom of each display that "[t]he secular application of the Ten Commandments is clearly seen in its adoption as the fundamental legal code of Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States," such an "avowed" secular purpose is not sufficient to avoid conflict with the First Amendment. The pre-eminent purpose of posting the Ten Commandments, which do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, is plainly religious in nature, and the posting serves no constitutional educational function. Cf. Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 . That the posted copies are financed by voluntary private contributions is immaterial, for the mere posting under the auspices of the legislature provides the official support of the state government that the Establishment Clause prohibits. Nor is it significant that the Ten Commandments are merely posted rather than read aloud, for it is no defense to urge that the religious practices may be relatively minor encroachments on the First Amendment. [Emphases added.]

The Constitution needs to be defended - this monument (as well as the one in New Kensington and wherever else they stand  on public school property) rightly needs to be removed.