"Justice" Moore and the “Ten Commandments”

           The battle lines become ever more clearly drawn.  Gone is any pretense to political subtly.  With every tangible success to turn America into a biblical  theocracy, the religious right becomes increasingly more emboldened.  With every small victory before the courts to protect our sacred civil freedoms, they become more belligerent and militant in their crusade to sack the Constitution out of existence.    It may be only one prominent boil currently showing on the face of American politics.  Still, the incident in Alabama with “Chief Justice” Moore and his Ten Commandments monument is about as representative as any instance could be.  Posturing themselves in arrogant defiance of a Federal Court order to remove the offending monument from government ground, Moore and his gophers refused to obey.  They defiantly whined about how their “civil rights” and “religious freedom” were being denied.  They even had the audacity to liken their sick cause to the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, singing “We Shall Overcome” to punctuate the illusion.  The main weapon of their rhetoric was the assertion that the biblical Ten Commandments were the moral foundation of the nation and furthermore responsible for the abolishment of slavery.  In truth, however, they claim a standard of morality for the Ten Commandments that it simply does not possess. (Source)

         Take note of the fact that slavery was not abolished in this country until after the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were stood up as the Supreme law of the land.  Abolishment of slavery was not a gift of the bible or its deity.  Rather, it was a gift of the essential mandates of the Constitution  pursuant to the organic ideals of the Declaration of Independence.  A cultural change motivated by the proposition that "all men are created equal".  It was no coincidence that a bloody civil war had to be waged against the god-loving, bible thumping Christian aristocracy of the south to bring them down from their slaving ways.  Of course, they would dearly have those nagging historical details forgotten.  The truth of the matter is that Moore and his kind don’t gave a damn about anybody’s religious rights but their own   It would seem that if they truly had their way, they would still be running strings of slaves in this nation.  Oh, give me that old time religion. 

        How many times must it be said?  For the right wing, religious freedom equates to forcing government endorsement of biblical theocracy as the official religion of state, thereby gaining the leverage to shove it down the throats of anyone and everyone.  That’s not religious freedom, its tyranny, the same kind of tyranny that the War of Independence was fought to ward off!    Without freedom from involuntary conscription to religion there is no freedom, neither religious nor secular!   What does religious freedom really mean?  It means the protected right, within the  constraints of constitutional law, to subscribe to biblical religion, or to subscribe to other faiths to the exclusion of biblical religion, or to subscribe to the civilly admissible tenants of any number of other religions, or not to subscribe to any religion at all.   That kind of freedom only truly exists if government is not sanctioning one alternative at the expense of the others.  That is why government must remain neutral toward religion and its deities, doctrines, and dogmas.  The "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment does not stand in isolation.  The reasonable limits of free exercise are dictated by the other clauses built into the Articles of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and subsequent Amendments.  This is a rather essential point that Moore and his kind evidently have a great deal of difficulty grasping.

        With little variation among translations the first commandment declares, “I am the lord thy god, thou shalt have no other gods before me.”   In full rendition, the rest of the commandment threatens draconian reprisal against anyone that fails to comply (details).  If ever there were an overt declaration of religious despotism intended to enslave in antithesis to the Sixth Article,  First, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendments, then the biblical  first commandment is truly that declaration.  This is not the United States of Bible Belt and it is not the United States of Israel!  It is the United States of America where the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the Supreme Law!  The Sixth Article says, "No religious test" and the First Amendment establishment clause says, "no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."   What this means is that government shall not be used to indorse or impose religion of any kind.  The right wing’s greedy, covetous efforts to force endorsement  of the Ten Commandments is a direct act of tampering with the fundamental rights of every citizen in the Nation.   We have no interest in having our sacred civil freedom strangled into extinction by a jealous, greedy,  Bronze Age, Middle Eastern tribal deity and its right-wing political stooges.  Beware of what is going on.  These degenerates and their barbaric idol are in the business of visiting the worst kind of totalitarian inequity on our nation and our lives.  They have their churches and private homes where they can worship their deity to the total exclusion of all others, and they enjoy that freedom under the protection of the Constitution.  However, that is the limit of the free exercise they are entitled to. It clearly does not extend to using government authority and property to force servitude to their theocratic agenda.     We need political and judicial leadership that will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, not sell it out to biblical theocracy or any other anti-constitutional ideological faction.  

     Those of us who stand with the true intent of the Constitution can take some momentary solace in the few significant battles that were recently won.   Bravely taking the first step to correct a fifty-year-old blunder, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the “under God” pledge as an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.  Subsequently, they refused to reverse the decision, even in the face of a US Justice Department appeal.  Unfortunately, the whole thing will likely end up at the Supreme Court to be battled over yet again.  Even now, the stooges for the religious right are marshaling their forces in preparation for that very event (Article).  In spite of Moore’s arrogant refusal to comply, the offending biblical monument was eventually removed.  Still, the Ten Commandments issue is far from dead.  In retaliation to the monument's removal, right wing Alabama republican Robert Aderholt has introduced legislation in Washington labeled the “The Ten Commandments Defense Act”.  The act is intended to neutralize the courts ability to protect the public trust from intrusion by religious dogma.  Then there is the case of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions and his right wing abuses before the Senate judicial confirmation hearings.  The list goes on.  Alabama?  Not exactly the enlightened south is it?    Too bad they can't find some politicians in that part of the country audacious enough in their sense of civic duty to wheel in some stone monuments to the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment.  Undoubtedly there are sensible people in Alabama, but with theocratic rabble like Moore holding political power they clearly have a tough road to hoe.  Moreover, the whole incident is only one  glaring example of an insidious right wing crusade against the just and fair secular laws that protect our civil rights, which includes religious freedom (article).  Riding the wave of "chartable choice" and "faith based" social welfare legislation, the government coffers are increasingly being turned into a candy shop for religious pork-barreling.  In contravention to the Constitution, religion tax is becoming a dangerous reality (article).   Yes, the battle lines are drawn and the stakes run high.    Those stakes are our sacred rights as free citizens of this nation.

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