Dobson, Others Respond to Supremes' Rulings on Decalogue
by Jody Brown and Allie Martin
June 28, 2005
(AgapePress) - Several respected Christian leaders say the prognosis is not good for public acknowledgement of God and His laws. They say Monday's Supreme Court rulings in two Ten Commandments cases do not bode well for those who might wish to publicly express their faith and exercise their God-given right to do so.Speaking to a national radio audience on Tuesday (June 28), Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family said by ruling against the display of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky courtrooms -- but, in a separate decision, stating a granite monument in Texas depicting the Decalogue is constitutional -- the Supreme Court "tore a hole through the First Amendment."
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Dr. James Dobson |
Dobson sees very little in the seemingly contradictory decisions to be encouraged about. "This was no affirmation of the right of religious expression," he said in reference to the Texas ruling. He then paraphrased what he feels that ruling essentially stated:"It's okay to keep a Ten Commandments monument on state-owned land, so long as you don't consider what's written on the state tablets to be anything more than empty words from a bygone era that is only worth remembering as a distant point on a timeline."
He added that the 5-4 vote in the Texas case was "chilling" because it means that four justices sitting on the Supreme Court bench "can't even condone the Commandments under decidedly non-religious circumstances." And if just one of those five justices in the majority had changed their vote, Dobson added, "sandblasters would have had to be taken to just about every government building in Washington, DC -- including the Supreme Court itself."
Moses holding the Ten Commandments is among the wall carvings in the Supreme Court chambers.
The closeness of both votes motivated Dobson to call upon his listeners to prepare to be involved in the anticipated fray over Supreme Court vacancies. "[T]he next justice must be a strict constructionist, a jurist who understands his or her role is to uphold, not shred, the Constitution," he said.
"All people of faith ... must be prepared to make their voices heard to make sure that a future Supreme Court lineup doesn't completely eradicate even our rights as individuals to acknowledge God publicly."
D. James Kennedy, Gary Bauer
Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries in Florida says were it not for the public acknowledgment of God, America would not exist. "Our nation came into being because we acknowledged God," Kennedy says in a press release. "Independence, the Founders said, was something to which they were entitled by 'the laws of nature and of nature's God.'"
As for the rulings, Kennedy is blunt in his assessment. "This is not law," he says. "This is the consequence of the Court's abandonment of the plain text of the Constitution." In effect, he adds, the Supreme Court has amended the Constitution "to make it mean and say something at odds with the text of the Constitution and with American history."
And not only has the Court abandoned the text of the Constitution, Kennedy says, but it has "forsaken and forbidden the historic recognition of God in American law and public life" and as "placed itself above the people, above the Constitution, and above God."
Gary Bauer of the Campaign for Working Families also sees, in the majority decision in the Kentucky case particularly, a continued misinterpretation of the so-called "separation of church and state" argument that detractors often read into the First Amendment. Of Justice David Souter's opinion that the Kentucky case demonstrated an advancement of religion by government instead of neutrality toward religion, Bauer states that Souter "seems to be suggesting that a display of the Ten Commandments may be constitutional so long as it is devoid of any religious significance."
But Bauer says faith was a cornerstone in America's founding. "When it came to faith in the public square, our founding fathers were anything but 'neutral,'" he says. "They clearly intended for government to be guided by morality. What they did not want was an official state denomination, like the Anglican Church of England, suppressing other denominations."
The pro-family spokesman says the Establishment Clause, so often used to bash expressions of faith in the public arena, was written "to keep the state out of the church so that faith might thrive" -- not to keep faith out of the public square.
'Ten Commandments' Judge
Roy Moore can speak from experience on the legal ramifications of publicly acknowledging faith in God. The former Alabama chief justice says in his opinion, the main issue is not the display of God's laws -- but whether the state can publicly acknowledge God under the First Amendment.
According to Moore, there is no law prohibiting such expression by the state. But because of the Supreme Court's rulings in the Kentucky and Texas cases, he says the high court will have to decide the constitutionality of every type of Ten Commandments display on government property.
"The [Supreme] Court is making problems for themselves by interfering with the First Amendment," he contends. "They have to judge every case by looking at each factual situation."
Moore explains that the Ten Commandments recognize the sovereign Judeo-Christian God upon which America and its legal system were was founded. "The question is: Can we do that [acknowledge God] under the First Amendment? -- and I'd say absolutely," he says.
He notes that the practices of the First Congress and of presidents for the past 200 years "dictates that [America] has a unique relationship to God -- and you can't deprive us of that right."
Moore was removed from his position as Alabama's chief justice for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building. He says it was his duty, under Alabama's constitution, to publicly acknowledge the God of the Bible.
