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The Free Congress Commentary:
by J. Bradley Keena
This month, a Washington, D.C. based anti-religious advocacy group went to court in Pittsburgh over a Ten Commandments display in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County Courthouse. The group, which calls itself Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says the bronze plaque listing the Commandments, "fails to adhere to the principle" of "the separation of church and state." Their lawsuit claims the plaque, which has been a fixture in the Court since 1918, "ignores the well-settled constitutional principle that state and local governments must follow a course of neutrality toward religion which neither advances nor inhibits religion." It is here that cracks begin to show in the wooden arguments of this nasty little group. First, of course, the phrase "separation of church and state" is never mentioned in the Constitution. An invention of the late 20th century, the fictitious "separation" is nothing more than a phony legal doctrine used to scare the public into believing it is some kind of Constitutional tenet that religious fanatics love to desecrate. The second flaw in the argument has the group assuming the debate over their counterfeit premise is settled. There is a little adage that says, "when you assume something, you make an "ass" out of "u" and "me." Instead, what the Constitution actually says is, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It's called the Establishment clause. It's about Congress, not states or communities. It prohibits a national religion, and it goes further: Congress may not prohibit the free exercise of religion. The Ten Commandments are about goodness, respect for the Creator, and love for those around us -- difficult things for those who hate religion, who recoil from divine laws forbidding murder, stealing, adultery, and perjury, and who obviously have way too much time on their hands. Scripture itself challenges those who seek social license apart public responsibility. Each cultural acknowledgment of the self-authenticating Creator is a threat to the carefully cultivated myth of self-autonomy. [While aspiring to liberty, a social standing that presupposes responsibility, none of the Constitutional Framers held to self-autonomy.] There is a passage in Isaiah that reads, "The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws." Sadly, many people in America today don't even know the precepts and statutes of God. Defendant Connolly had stronger comments: "We're back to the Star Chamber and Acts of Attainder: the rights of defendants are not respected or guaranteed in any way; the offence of seditious libel has been resurrected." But I have secret to tell you. I've read the rest of the book that the church-state lawyers have succeeded in separating from public society. The book, that is the Scriptures, tell of a Day in which God will dwell with his children, "and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." J. Bradley Keena is editor of CulturalDissident.com
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