Separation of Church and State; It's OK to Cheat a Little

 

Along with friends in Red River Freethinkers, I spent several years trying to move a stone engraved version of the Ten Commandments off City of Fargo (ND) property. My wife, Elaine, and I put not only time but a considerable amount of money into the effort. While we were unsuccessful and the stone still stands there, it was an interesting experience and provided a life-long thread of events I still follow. One was an article published recently by a law professor at the Christian university, Liberty. To my amateur eyes it seems like a balanced view of the history and current status of displaying the Ten Commandments on public property.  

These Ten Commandment display go back mostly to the 1950's. There was sort of an irony of history that Cecil B. Demill was promoting his movie, "Ten Commandments" at the same time a judge in Minneapolis concluded that children behaved better if the Ten Commandments are displayed in their homes. The result was stones being installed on public property all across the U.S.

Then came the 1970's push back. At first some courts said the stones violated church-state and ordered them removed. Then there was the Lemon case that said if the stones were displayed in such a way as to suggest they were policy, they had to be removed. This case said in effect, "We can cheat a little on church-state separation if the stones are not located prominently."

Because sone stones were removed due to Lemon, conservatives did not like it. Conservative judges changed the rules again, "We can cheat on church-state if the stones represent U.S. history." This raised another challenge, what history. There is anti-Catholic history, anti-Jew, etc. 

Now, even conservatives are disagreeing on how much and what religion can be allowed. If the public display contains religion and it is "history", when did history start. The native people who lived here before white people had their own religions including ceremonies. 

I'm not aware of any harm that would be done if displays of the Ten Commandments were displayed only on private property. Harm is done when religion is used against people who believe something different.