Sometimes it’s hard to find a ray of light in the American
judicial system, but once in a while the sun comes shining through.
In a shocking display of clarity and common sense, a federal
appeals court judge ruled last month that the Ten Commandments may
remain on a wall in a Mercer County, Kentucky courthouse.
The case concerned a display entitled, “Foundations of American
Law and Government,” which, in addition to the Commandments, also
includes; the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence,
the Bill of Rights, the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, the
Magna Carta, the Star-Spangled Banner, Lady Justice, and the
National Motto “In God We Trust.”
Last year the U.S. Supreme Court muddied the constitutional
waters when it issued a
split decision on two cases concerning the Ten Commandments;
ruling that they may remain on a monument in Texas while
prohibiting their display in two McCreary County, Kentucky
courthouses.
As we have come to expect from a man who thinks international
law should pertain to our justice system, Justice Stephen Breyer
explained the confusing decisions: “This [Texas] display has stood
apparently uncontested for nearly two generations. That experience
helps us understand that as a practical matter of degree this
display is unlikely to prove divisive.”
But referring to the Kentucky displays, he said: “In a Nation of
so many different religious and comparable nonreligious fundamental
beliefs, a more contemporary state effort to focus attention upon a
religious text is certainly likely to prove divisive in a way that
this longstanding, pre-existing monument has not.”
In other words, Justice Breyer believes that, rather than ruling
on the constitutionality of the displays, the quality of their
divisiveness should be a main determinative factor — just another
instance of the living, breathing document formerly known as the
law of the land suffering indignities at the hands of a liberal
mediocrity.
However, on the heels of this legal inanity comes some of the
best opinion-writing this side of Antonin Scalia. In the ACLU
v. Mercer County (KY), 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge
Richard Suhrheinrich, a Reagan appointee, gave the ACLU lawyers a lesson in history and a
well-deserved slap-down:
The ACLU erroneously — though perhaps intentionally —
equates recognition with endorsement. To endorse is necessarily to
recognize, but the converse does not follow….If the reasonable
observer perceived all government references to the Deity as
endorsements, then many of our Nation’s cherished traditions would
be unconstitutional, including the Declaration of Independence and
the national motto. Fortunately, the reasonable person is not a
hyper-sensitive plaintiff.
He went further: “A reasonable observer would not view this
display as an attempt by Mercer County to establish religion.
Instead, he would view it for what it is: an acknowledgment of
history.” He then delivered the coup de grace, an opinion
conservatives have been shouting from the rooftops for years:
The ACLU makes repeated reference to “the separation of
church and state.” This extra-constitutional construct has grown
tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation
between church and state.
He also did not ignore Breyer and company. Summing up the murky
precedents on public religious displays emanating from Washington,
he wrote deliciously: “Thus, we remain in Establishment Clause
purgatory.”
He could have added that the ACLU and others continue to cite
the “wall between church and state” passage of a letter
from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury (CT) Baptists as rock-solid
proof for their claims, yet refuse to give the same weight to his
deity-filled Declaration of Independence, which was actually
ratified by the Congress.
As a result of the ACLU’s latest loss, officials in Hardin
County, Kentucky, and elsewhere are considering putting the Ten
Commandments on display. This illustrates why secularists
desperately need to rewrite history as courts are now beginning to
affirm that Ten Commandments displays do not endorse religion when
used in historic context.
Liberals and their politically-correct acolytes in the education
field have done yeoman’s work in that regard, as American history
classes have become more and more insignificant. Their only
stumbling blocks may be more sound legal minds like Richard
Suhrheinrich and the soon-to-be confirmed Samuel Alito, as well as
history itself.
Lisa
Fabrizio is a columnist who hails from Connecticut. You may
write her at mailbox@lisafab.com.
