The [url=http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...]trial for the Alabama Chief Justice[/url] who refused to follow an order from a federal judge to remove his display of the Ten Commandments in the state courtroom rotunda began today. Moore, the Chief Justice on trial, stated:
"Not only did I fulfill what I told the people of Alabama I would do, I also had a duty to uphold the constitutions of the United States and the state of Alabama. They both acknowledge God," Moore said.
Alright, the constitutions [i]acknowledge[/i] God. More importantly, the US Constitution (I know nothing of Alabama's) emphasizes the necessity of a separation of church and state. Displaying the Ten Commandments in the state courthouse seems to be imposing a religious doctrine. That seems pretty clear to me, maybe I'm wrong though. Apparently my interpretation of the constitution differs from that of Moore, and he is a state Chief Justice, so I'm sure he knows more about this than I do.
A few years ago, a state delegate here in Virginia tried to have a bill passed into legislation in which schools would be "allowed" to post the Ten Commandments. It was scary. The bill was passed by the House of Delegates, but thankfully did not make it in the Senate. The bill was crafted in a manner to evade the prohibitions detailed in the Establishment Clause by including posting text from three secular documents as well as the Ten Commandments, and claimed to be about instilling the values with which the country was founded. Obviously, it was an attempt at displaying a religious document in the schools and luckily was shot down. The values promoted in the Ten Commandments are perfectly valid and promotion of these values is fine. However, posting the Ten Commandments is unnecessary to this process and, in fact, slows the process down by only causing controversy. But for some reason, religious fanatics seem to feel that it is necessary to infiltrate society with the messages of their religion. I have nothing against the Ten Commandments, but posting them in public schools or courtrooms does violate the constitution.
In other news, the Senate is having a 30-hour debate starting tonight. I would love to be there. But I'm not a senator, for some reason, so I'll just have to settle for commenting on here. The debate is over the four Bush nominees that didn't make it to the federal appeals bench. I am amazed at the absurdity of this. This would actually be really amusing if it wasn't for the fact that there are so many issues that are so much more important. The fact that the Democrats filibustered to prevent the nominations of four of Bush's nominees just really isn't that important. I can understand the outrage by the Republicans at this, but, come on, 4 out of 168 really isn't that big a deal. Especially considering the lack of attention being paid to other, more important issues because of this. It's great to see that our representatives have such a great sense of humor (signs and shirts by the Democrats including: "I'll be home watching 'The Bachelor'", "We confirmed 98 percent of President Bush's judges, and all we got was this lousy T-shirt"), but I'm losing mine. Thirty hours spent debating something that has a much less significant effect than so many other issues (Iraq, economy, health insurance, etc.) is beyond ridiculous.
"Tragically, a nation that was created by intellectuals and visionaries has now been completely taken over by venal corporate gangsters, delusional Christian fruitcakes and hopelessly shallow Texas shit-kickers." -Tom Robbins
