Posted on 05/08/2012 6:39:23 PM PDT by Kaslin
Could the Ten Commandments be reduced to six, a federal judge asked Monday.
Would that neutralize the religious overtones of a commandments display that has the Giles County School Board in legal hot water?
That unorthodox suggestion was made by Judge Michael Urbanski during oral arguments over whether the display amounts to a governmental endorsement of religion, as alleged in a lawsuit filed by a student at Narrows High School.
After raising many pointed questions about whether the commandments pass legal muster, the judge referred the case to mediation - with a suggestion:
Remove the first four commandments, which are clearly religious in nature, and leave the remaining six, which make more secular commands, such as do not kill or steal.
Ever since the lawsuit was filed in September amid heated community reaction, school officials have said the display is not religious because it also includes historical documents such as the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
"If indeed this issue is not about God, why wouldn't it make sense for Giles County to say, 'Let's go back and just post the bottom six?'" Urbanski asked during a motions hearing in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.
"But if it's really about God, then they wouldn't be willing to do that."
After delaying a ruling on the lawsuit, Urbanski directed attorneys on both sides to meet with Magistrate Judge Robert Ballou, who will lead mediation sessions in the coming weeks.
If those discussions do not produce a settlement, Urbanski must decide whether the school board had religious intentions when it voted 3-2 last June to put the commandments back up after angry public reaction to their earlier removal.
That decision will be guided by a myriad of precedent-setting cases that have prohibited the Ten Commandments in schools and other public buildings, such as courthouses, while permitting them under certain, narrow circumstances.
There is no federal case allowing the commandments in a school, said Rebecca Glenberg of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the student. While Urbanski agreed, he called the details of the Giles County dispute "very nuanced."
Because the commandments appear with other historical documents, and because they are mentioned in the curriculum of Giles County schools, there's reason to find the board had a secular mission when it approved the display, argued Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel, a Christian-based law group that is defending the county.
While allowing for that possibility with the board's 3-2 vote last June to put up a multidocument display, Urbanski said it clearly was not the case earlier in the year, when the Ten Commandments issue erupted into controversy.
After the commandments were removed in response to a complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the school board reversed course in January 2011 after more than 200 angry residents packed a meeting to complain.
At the time, no one was clamoring for more historical documents in the schools. They were furious about the removal of the Ten Commandments, the ACLU argues, and the school board appeased the masses and violated the First Amendment with the same vote.
Urbanski noted how one board member thanked the crowd for turning out to support the commandments.
"That's not an endorsement of religion?" he said. "Come on.
"It's clear to me that when the school board voted, there was only one thing on their mind. And that was God."
But does that improper endorsement of religion taint the school board's later decision, made on the advice of Liberty Counsel, to take the commandments back down and replace them with the current historical display?
That will be a question for the judge if the mediation fails.
A key issue in the case will be whether there is a secular basis for the school board's vote -- "as opposed to responding to a religious fervor," Urbanski said.
At Monday's hearing, Urbanski was asked by both sides to grant their motions for summary judgment, which assume that the facts are not in dispute and the matter is ripe for a legal analysis. The ACLU wants Urbanski to order the commandments be taken down; Liberty Counsel wants him to dismiss the lawsuit.
Not long into oral arguments, Urbanski posed his suggestion about removing the first four commandments.
Staver, who has studied countless Ten Commandments cases and argued one before the U.S. Supreme Court, said after the hearing he was not aware of such an outcome in any such case.
In court, Staver first said there was no legal reason to edit the commandments. When pressed by the judge to say whether the county might consider it, he said the question had never come up before.
"Well, it's going to come up today," Urbanski said.
What remains unclear is whether the county would be willing to make such a move - likely to produce more political turmoil - during future discussions to come from mediation.
In suggesting the compromise, Urbanski cited the potential of Giles County facing huge legal bills. Although Liberty Counsel is representing the board for free, it would have to pay the ACLU's legal costs should the student prevail. Two rural counties in Kentucky were stuck with a $450,000 tab in a similar case.
The judge said that "in today's economic climate, with school boards as taxed as they are ... financial issues are real issues."
The board may not have many options, said Wat Hopkins, a Virginia Tech communication professor who studies First Amendment law.
"It was not a good day for Giles County," said Hopkins, who sat in on Monday's court session. "He kind of left them with one door to go through."
Suuurrreeee, and while we’re at it, teach the kids that the Moon is made of green cheese, the Easter Bunny was in Hawaii for vacation, and...what else nonsense they can come up with.
God GOD! Has everyone been taking crazy pills?
In much the same way, symbols have been bastardized by liberal interest groups, the state/fed just moves in an emotional wind. Instead, the state should neither recognize, endorse, favor or forbid any free exercise of religious expression that does not infringe on the rights of others to pursue life, liberty and happiness.
NOTE: ...that does not infringe on the rights of others.
I personally do not endorse the interpretation of Jefferson's original letter suggesting there is a clear separation of church and state. The constitution itself is more clear in that congress shall pass no laws abridging the right.... Neither the Constitution nor Thomas Jefferson ever suggested the banning of religious symbols to protect one group of citizenry's belief over another’s.
This post is entirely from a historical point of view and does not represent its author's religious opinion of the 10 Commandments.
You are obviously not a Lutheran. Either that or you don’t have a clue.
Just throw out the 10 Commandments and start using the Georgia Guidestones openly. After all, the demons in the country are brazenly and actively supporting depopulation, among other key elements of those Satanic stones.
I have read that Martin Luther kept the Catholic counting of the Ten Commandments. I'm not a Lutheran and I don't know if modern-day Lutherans follow his practice or agree with other Protestants.
The WRATH of God, cometh soon.
Understoood. We follow all the commandments, no breakdown, or interpretation. Luther’s catechism makes no distinctions.
Maybe that is our break with the Catholic Church. Maybe it is also our break with the Wisconsin synod, I am Missouri synod.
The Church has many divisions, and ultimately dilutions. Kinda like our modern society, justifying actions with diluted morality.
Understoood. We follow all the commandments, no breakdown, or interpretation. Luther’s catechism makes no distinctions.
Maybe that is our break with the Catholic Church. Maybe it is also our break with the Wisconsin synod, I am Missouri synod.
The Church has many divisions, and ultimately dilutions. Kinda like our modern society, justifying actions with diluted morality.
Judging from the quality of education in many parts of this country, I believe they are already doing this.
Jesus cut the commandments down to two. (Matt. 22:37-40) Wonder if the judge would go with that solution?
>>Why not just teach the last 15 letters of the alphabet?
>
>Judging from the quality of education in many parts of this country, I believe they are already doing this.
Dud txt so rks.
(Sorry, that should be read with dripping sarcasm.... sprinkled liberally with Schadenfreude.)
>Jesus cut the commandments down to two. (Matt. 22:37-40) Wonder if the judge would go with that solution?
Probably say something like this:
Who the hell is this ‘Jesus’ guy to think that he has any authority in the law? Why I bet he doesn’t have any precedent to back what he says up!
Well, that might just be my sarcasm kicking in.
The entire Bible is historical, a better argument is the Feds have no business in local schools at all.
I guess the commandments have joined the U.S Constitution on the liberal list of “living documents.”
Liberals are smarter than God.
Well, anyway, spoken like a true Roman judge! "Quis est veritas?"
"'What is the truth?' said jesting Pilate,
And would not stay for an answer." -- Browning
And then there was this guy, from the Acts:
"Et nihil erat curae Gallioni." (Jews complaining about Christians and demanding the right to try them and stone them under Jewish ecclesiastical law.)
"And it was of no concern to Gallio."
This judge is making thinly veiled threats to Giles County.
He also ought to know that in parallel cases what was done was to add other historical fundamental law documents to the Commandments display. This proposal is new and a bunch of hooey.
Isn’t militant atheism also about God (in their case, chasing references to God out)?
The judge is a fool.
(”The fool hath said in his heart, [There is] no God.” Psalm 14:1)
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