{"id":4918,"date":"2005-08-08T11:21:33","date_gmt":"2005-08-08T15:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4918.html"},"modified":"2005-08-08T11:21:33","modified_gmt":"2005-08-08T15:21:33","slug":"the-inevitable-result-of-the-ten-commandments-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-inevitable-result-of-the-ten-commandments-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"The inevitable result of the Ten Commandments cases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Supreme Court has said local governments kinda sorta can promote the Ten Commandments on public property, so long as the display features some diversity with other symbols and\/or documents. For those who want government to intervene in religious matters, the high court&#8217;s guidance is ambiguous, but helpful enough to move forward with plans to get more religious monuments erected at city halls and courthouses nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>As is sometimes the case, however, these guys should be careful what they wish for.<\/p>\n<p>In Pleasant Grove, Utah, for example, a Ten Commandments memorial, donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1971, sits in a secluded area of city property that is intended to honor the city&#8217;s heritage. Pleasant Grove is now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.firstamendmentcenter.org\/news.aspx?id=15635\">facing litigation<\/a> about the display, not from civil libertarians, but from another religious group that wants equal treatment.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Summum religion has sued the city of Pleasant Grove for the right to display the other set of laws they say Moses brought down the mountain.<\/p>\n<p>The city has refused to allow the Salt Lake City-based religion to erect a monument enumerating the Seven Aphorisms, principles they say underlie creation and nature, with a public memorial that includes the Ten Commandments.<\/p>\n<p>Summum leaders believe these were initially passed only to a select few who could understand them, but that Moses also delivered a lower set of laws, the Ten Commandments, which were more widely distributed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m not an expert in the Summum, but as I understand it, the group&#8217;s Aphorisms include statements such as &#8220;Summum is Mind, Thought; the Universe is a Mental Creation,&#8221; and &#8220;Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates,&#8221; and &#8220;As above, so below; as below, so above.&#8221; I haven&#8217;t a clue what any of this means, but that&#8217;s not really the point.<\/p>\n<p>These people see one religious tradition&#8217;s sacred text endorsed in a public and they&#8217;d like their beliefs to receive similar support. It&#8217;s not an unreasonable argument.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of people seem to believe America needs more religion in its &#8220;public square.&#8221; The Summum agree. The religious majority, however, have considered their requests and responded, &#8220;Uh, we didn&#8217;t mean you guys.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This won&#8217;t do. Those who want state-sponsored religious displays shouldn&#8217;t be allowed to get picky about which religions get endorsed and which get left behind. The government cannot be in a position of deciding which religions are &#8220;real&#8221; and which are &#8220;bizarre.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Want more religious monuments in front of city hall? Fine, but you better start saving room for quite a few religious groups. It&#8217;s a diverse country, you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Supreme Court has said local governments kinda sorta can promote the Ten Commandments on public property, so long as the display features some diversity with other symbols and\/or documents. For those who want government to intervene in religious matters, the high court&#8217;s guidance is ambiguous, but helpful enough to move forward with plans to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}