Removing Liberty's Only Firm Foundation
10 Mar 2005
On Wednesday, March 2, 2005, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments for and against the display of the Decalogue on government property. During the arguments, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested limiting displays of the Ten Commandments on government property to the last five commandments, like the stone image of Moses holding a Hebrew-inscribed tablet does in the justices’ own courtroom. Erwin Chemerinsky, a DukeUniversity law professor representing an opponent of a disputed Decalogue display in Texas, quickly objected to the Ginsburg proposal. According to Chemerinsky, this would still be “unconstitutional,” because the government would be “expressing the message that there is a God.”
I’m sure the Supreme Court Justices appreciated Chemerinsky pointing out what had obviously eluded them; namely, the unconstitutional display of the Decalogue hanging over their heads in their own courtroom. Thanks to geniuses like Chemerinsky, the frieze of Moses may soon be removed from over the justices’ heads and the court’s traditional opening—“God save the United States and this honorable court”—may soon be outlawed as unconstitutional. However, I can’t help but wonder how a government founded on the proposition “that all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” shall long endure if henceforth prohibited from acknowledging the existence of God.
Unlike communist governments, which are hostile towards their people’s belief in God, or purely secularist governments, which are impervious towards their people’s belief in God, our government was founded on belief in God. According to the Declaration of Independence, the purpose of government is “to secure” men’s “unalienable rights.” What are unalienable rights? Rights “endowed” to us by our “Creator,” such as the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Since these rights are God-given, they are also unalienable. Thus, the purpose of government is to guarantee our unalienable rights and to guard us against all who would violate them.
According to Thomas Jefferson, the architect of the Declaration of Independence, “the liberties of [our] nation” can never be “secure” if “we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God.” Jefferson, unlike Chemerinsky and his fellow-secularists, understood that our unalienable rights are at risk the moment God is removed from public view and the minds of the people. Any government refusing to acknowledge God will soon usurp the place of God, deciding for its people who lives and who doesn’t, who is free and who isn’t, and who deserves a chance at happiness and who don’t. Furthermore, any people who forget God will forfeit their unalienable rights and subject themselves to tyrannical government. If the Supreme Court decides in Chemerinsky’s favor, putting God out of sight and out of mind, America may soon find itself out of time.
Don Walton
|
