The Ten Commandments vs. the Flag Amendment

Jacob Sullum | June 28, 2005

I suspect there's a lot of overlap between people who support government displays of the Ten Commandments, at issue in two cases decided by the Supreme Court yesterday, and people who think the Constitution should be amended to prohibit "desecration" of the U.S. flag, as the House voted to do last week. But it's hard to see how the latter position can be squared with the divine injunction against idolatry that appears at the beginning of the Decalogue.

Comments

blah|6.28.05 @ 8:04AM|#

agreed.

majorities do love thier symbols and idols, eh?

I just wish sometimes they would quote more from the sermon on the mount/olivet discourse once in a while to show the opposite of all their love of "law", and respect the tradition of "love" once in a while. Alas, too liberal to quote Jesus, not gonna happen.

blah|6.28.05 @ 8:07AM|#

strike olivet, thats the more apocalyptic sayings, we dont really need more of that.

|6.28.05 @ 8:38AM|#

Jacob,

You're right, it is a strange argument if looked at in those terms. You have people who love the ridgid, vengeful old testament(when it's conveniently against what they don't like), who are breaking the first rule by worshipping an inanimate object.

Someone yell at me if I'm wrong (I'm a little rusty on these things since losing the faith), but I thought that post-Jesus, there were only two commandments. Love God above all things, and love your neighbor as yourself. Why is it that people are more interested in putting the Ten in the courthouse, rather that those?

|6.28.05 @ 8:58AM|#

>I suspect there's a lot of overlap between people..


Yes, they are called 'Republicans'.

|6.28.05 @ 9:03AM|#

It's interesting how liberals have been going on about how Kelo and Raich are small potatoes in the face of Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and the Iraq war. But even though I would go farther than O'Connor and suggest that "In God We Trust" belongs on custom checks instead of public tender, I can't see how taking the Ten Commandments out of courthouses even registers on the rage-o-meter compared to forcing people out of their homes at below-market rates in order to enrich the politically-connected.

|6.28.05 @ 9:19AM|#

You don't worship a flag, you show it respect.

Does it violate the First Commandment - no other gods but me - for people to stand when a judge enters the courtroom?

That there is a huge difference between the respect shown to secular authority and the act of worshipping God should be pretty well established in the mind of anyone who adheres to liberal, enlightenment values.

raymond|6.28.05 @ 9:25AM|#

"Right-to-life" people have no trouble baying for blood when it comes to ritualised state human sacrifice, either.

|6.28.05 @ 9:26AM|#

What the two most have in common is that they are ginormous wastes of time. Pardon me for caring more about statutes than statues.

|6.28.05 @ 9:49AM|#

Desecrate literally means to vioalte the sacredness of something.

I'm with the flag worship = idolatry camp.

I found the following passage from cafehayek thought provoking:

But I've become convinced that a major difference separating libertarians from non-libertarians is libertarians? hostility to secular superstitions.

I'm not talking here about belief in spiritual deities. Many libertarians (like myself) are atheists; many others (like my co-blogger Russ Roberts) are deeply religious. But almost by definition, all libertarians reject the notion that the state is something other than a human institution deserving more credence, respect, deference, and trust than is commonly given to other human institutions such as supermarkets and bowling leagues.

Libertarians understand in their guts that flags, anthems, marble domes and columns, fancy titles, embassies, and majoritarian-voting procedures do not transform human beings and human institutions into something higher than human beings and human institutions.

Making 'desecration' of the flag illegal is as silly as making it illegal to burn flags with G.E.'s logo on them.

Alla|6.28.05 @ 10:05AM|#

I tend to think the problem with these people isn't their worship of the inanimate objects. The American flag is a symbol of freedom, and to them it seems wrong, if not silly, for someone to burn that symbol. So obviously, the answer is to have the government illegalize it. It's the same as with everything else: people don't seem to understand just because they believe or don't believe in something, it doesn't mean there needs to be a law about it.

Vache Folle|6.28.05 @ 10:09AM|#

When I was in 3rd grade back during the 60s, we were compelled to recite the pledge to the flag. One of my classmates was a Jehovah's Witness who conscientously objected to the pledge. He refused to "worship a rag", as he put it. He was called up every day for weeks to the front of the class and humiliated for his refusal to pledge allegiance. He was sent to the "office" on several occasions where he was beaten with a paddle. Finally, the teacher relented, and he was no longer required to pledge and was no longer held up for ridicule.

The actions of the school had the opposite impact from what was intended, at least in my case. None of the other kids bullied him or took up the patriotic cause. That kid demystified the flag for me, and I never looked at it the same way again. I admired him for his stand and have never forgotten his courage. At some point, we stopped reciting the pledge in school and saying the Lord's Prayer, but I don't remember when. Evidently, we did not miss the ritual.

|6.28.05 @ 10:50AM|#

Vache Folle: Same story in my early elementary school classes, except our resident pledge-eschewing JW was treated with a lot more respect (that I could see, anyway) by the school.

In terms of the usual trappings and rituals of patriotism, Long Island was a pretty jaded place by the early 1980s.

|6.28.05 @ 11:03AM|#

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth"

Apart from the stars, which aren't really supposed to be stars, there is nothing on the flag that is in the likeness of anything in the heavens, under the earth, etc.

|6.28.05 @ 11:24AM|#

So, let me get this straight. If the Ten Commandments don't mean anything, then why the effort to remove them? Can they just as easily be ignored, like the other awe-inspiring monuments to governmental power that we are supposedly so impressed by? Also, why did the Supremes not order them removed from their own building? At what point do Supreme Court cases about the decorations around county court houses just become silly, or has that point already passed?

|6.28.05 @ 11:43AM|#

It's never that simple, Don. If a court system that is supposed to be impartial makes an ostentatious display of Judeo-Christian biblical law, and you aren't Jewish or Christian, what assurance do you have that you'll get a fair trial? Especially when the judge who brought the monument in did so as a testament to his faith.


That said, I was happy with the decision, especially since it enraged both the hardcore atheists and the ever-persecuted religious right. I'm an atheist but can respect historical displays of law, even religious ones. Besides, anything that can simultaneously upset Michael Newdow and James Dobson is okay by me.

|6.28.05 @ 11:52AM|#

Don,

You have it backwards. The Supremes said that the state has to remove Commandment monuments when they DO mean something - endorsement of religion.

There is a term for religious-themed speech that doesn't actually have relgious meaning - "Ceremonial Deism" - and the Court has ruled that those displays are allowed.

As for their own buildings, the Court recognized that some Ten Commandments displays are monuments to religion while others are monuments to law. The government is allowed to build monuments to law, but the First Amendment forbids it from building monuments to religion.

|6.28.05 @ 1:45PM|#

I remember reading in a Nat Hentoff book that there was a riot during WWII in Rockville, Maryland (my cherished former hometown) at the Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall because the Witnesses's refused to display an American flag, which they considered to be an act of idolatry.

|6.28.05 @ 2:43PM|#

"Right-to-life" people have no trouble baying for blood when it comes to ritualised state human sacrifice, either.

Depends. We see a number of Christian groups protesting executions for explicitly right-to-life reasons (and yes, often explicitly linking executions and abortions as government-permitted murder) in Texas.

|6.28.05 @ 3:05PM|#

So on that commandment monument, did they use the King James Version or was it the Catholic one?

|6.28.05 @ 3:06PM|#

Ken,

It was identified, in the display itself, as the King James version.

|6.28.05 @ 3:46PM|#

If it is a monument to judeo-christian law tradition, why weren't the commandments in hebrew, since that was the original language??

|6.28.05 @ 4:03PM|#

But it's hard to see how the latter position can be squared with the divine injunction against idolatry that appears at the beginning of the Decalogue.

It's hard for me to see how fundamentalists' fetish for the Bible can be squared with the injunction against idolatry. Seriously - to these people it's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Bible.

Someone yell at me if I'm wrong (I'm a little rusty on these things since losing the faith), but I thought that post-Jesus, there were only two commandments. Love God above all things, and love your neighbor as yourself. Why is it that people are more interested in putting the Ten in the courthouse, rather that those?

Good question. Maybe because the people who want the Ten Commandments in courthouses aren't too interested in "love" and all that hippy crap?

|6.28.05 @ 4:56PM|#

"It was identified, in the display itself, as the King James version."

Doesn't that suggest some bias? I mean, when we talk about Judeo-Christian heritage, we're talking about Catholics too, right? ...Maybe that monument needs some asterisks or some footnotes or something?

|6.28.05 @ 4:58PM|#

Maybe the exact wording of the instructions on which god to worship and how to go about worshipping him, that one finds upon walking into a public building, isn't the big issue here.

|6.28.05 @ 5:48PM|#

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

Maybe placing religious statues in courthouses is a bad ideal but having them there does not create a national religion. Perhaps local areas should be able to decide on the decorations of their buildings. I would think having displays of various types of execution machines would also be disturbing but not unconstitutional.

|6.28.05 @ 5:50PM|#

Someone yell at me if I'm wrong (I'm a little rusty on these things since losing the faith), but I thought that post-Jesus, there were only two commandments. Love God above all things, and love your neighbor as yourself. Why is it that people are more interested in putting the Ten in the courthouse, rather that those?

For some folks, it's hard to remember not to commit adultery without some kind of written reminder. If not the Ten Commandments, than at least a Post-It note or something.

|6.28.05 @ 6:00PM|#

"Maybe the exact wording of the instructions on which god to worship and how to go about worshipping him, that one finds upon walking into a public building, isn't the big issue here."

I don't know joe, I'm an 'ol time, non-evangelical protestant from way back, and even I think there oughta be a big, fat smilin' Buddah sittin' right next to that scribbled on chunk of stone.

|6.28.05 @ 7:49PM|#

Douglas- those kind of events were what precipitated this.

I have to assume that Vache and Dave went to public schools. Where else could you get such a fine grounding in constitutional law.

|6.29.05 @ 8:54AM|#

"If it is a monument to judeo-christian law tradition, why weren't the commandments in hebrew, since that was the original language??"

Brilliant point. To have them printed in English means that they are meant to INSTRUCT.

|6.29.05 @ 9:48AM|#

Good point, MNG.

Ricky, commandments found inside a City Hall of a courthouse are, unavoidably, the government's commandments.

|6.29.05 @ 10:04AM|#

I very much a separation kinda guy, but I can't shake this feeling that folks who get really upset about monuments are just anxious to pee in Religious Right Cheerios. The monuments can't possibly matter in any substantive way, and courthouses are populated by adults who can make their own decisions about such things. The no monument crowd is probably correct on the technical front, but damn this is a big stink over nothing.

|6.29.05 @ 10:15AM|#

Joe, commandment displays are background. They are not government signs displaying the laws of that area. Anyone that sees the display and mistakes it for the laws of the land is unreasonable. If a community wants to use the local church as its courthouse then it should be able to. It is the actions of the court that are important, not the decorations surrounding them.

|6.29.05 @ 10:24AM|#

Ricky,

I'd like you to imagine that your wife has filed for divorce. The complaint charges you with physical abuse, boorish behavior, and cheating with strippers.

You walk into the courtroom, and you that the crew-cutted woman judge has festooned the area with Adrienne Rich poems, NOW posters, and iconic photographs of prominent women's rights crusaders.

Now, I'd like you to imagine how an atheist walking into the Kentucky courthouse to defend himself against obscenity charges might feel.

|6.29.05 @ 10:54AM|#

Joe, it is not whether or not you feel like you got a fair trial. It is whether or not you got a fair trial that is important. From what I hear a guy walking into any court house for a divorce is not getting a fair deal.

|6.29.05 @ 11:00AM|#

It's obvious that some decorations are going to make some people uncomfortable. But that does not mean that those people are going to get an unfair trial. It doesn't seem like a good ideal to have decorations like that in the courthouse but I don't see how it is anyone outside of the communities business. Each community should be able to make restrictions on displays if they choose.

|6.29.05 @ 12:32PM|#

'I very much a separation kinda guy, but I can't shake this feeling that folks who get really upset about monuments are just anxious to pee in Religious Right Cheerios."

Oh, I'd like to put something in their Cheerios that's a little more potent than urine. Oh, by the way, does anyone have several tons of castor beans they want to get rid of?

|6.29.05 @ 12:34PM|#

Sigh.... Ok... ok... I'll settle for Exlax.

|7.1.05 @ 8:07PM|#

If the Ten Commandments don't mean anything, then why the effort to remove them?

The only people trying to denigrate the import and religious context of the Ten Commandments are the ones trying to BS us into keeping them on public monuments.

"Because, you see, that First Commandment is, um, an important component of our secular legal heritage, yessireebob..."