Unconstitutional Christian bigotry

By Robyn Wethington

On March 1, 2010, The Supreme Court refused to hear a case about a Ten Commandments monument facing removal from Haskell County courthouse grounds in Oklahoma. Since 2004, an 8-foot-tall stone monument of the Ten Commandments has adorned the Haskell County courthouse lawn. On July 30, 2009, the tenth circuit court of appeals ruled that the implied religious endorsement of the Judeo-Christian tribute was unconstitutional. By recently refusing to hear the case, the Supreme Court justices are approving the lower court decision to eradicate the monument.

So what about the Ten Commandments etched on the Supreme Court doors? The Ten Commandments are engraved on the oak doors of the Supreme Court. Moses, holding the Ten Commandments, is featured among the world’s lawgivers at the top of the Supreme Court building. Inside the courtroom, directly above where the Supreme Court judges sit when hearing cases, the Ten Commandments are on display once again. Bible verses etched in stone surround the federal buildings and monuments in Washington, DC.

The United States was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, in particular, the Ten Commandments. America was built on the conviction that there are unalienable rights that stem from Christian principles, such as the precept that all men are created equal in the eyes of God.

“We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God,” said James Madison, one of the fathers of our Constitution and the country's fourth president. The Ten Commandments outlined the most basic differentiation of right and wrong, and Madison among other forefathers, recognized them as fundamental rules to be followed by a free and just country.

Moreover, John Jay, the first Supreme Court Justice, once said, “Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rulers.” Though this may sound extremist to Americans today, it is nonetheless a testimony to how important Christian principles were to the charter members of this country. Religious tolerance was enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Yet, today, it seems any ode to Christianity is perceived as a  form of discrimination to those of other faiths.

Yet, deeply religious men and women built this country; others, fleeing religious persecution, followed them here. Christians who first came to this land played a pivotal role in shaping and framing the government we have today.  And Christianity is still a vital part of  the nation’s government. To this day, every Congressional session begins with a prayer. Since 1777, taxpayer dollars have paid the selected preacher’s salary. Our currency says “In God we trust.”

Americans are religious people who attend church in greater numbers than their industrialized peers around the world. According to a 2002 Pew Research Center study, six-in-10 (or 59 percent) Americans say religion plays a very important role in their lives. This is roughly twice the percentage of self-avowed religious people in Canada (30 percent), and an even higher proportion when compared with Japan and Western Europe.  In a 2008 American Religious Identification Survey at Trinity College, 76 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian.

The Supreme Court sent the wrong message to the country when the justices let the lower court decision stand over Haskell County’s Ten Commandment monument. This is justified by those who claim that the government must remain neutral when it comes to religion; in their view,  even allowing a monument of the Ten Commandments on a courthouse lawn unjustly promotes Christianity in an active manner that translates into superior preference.

Unfortunately, the sad truth is that Christianity—the very religion this country was founded on and that most Americans adhere to—is being discriminated against by radical left-wing zealots. Let us not allow them or the courts to have the final say.

-Robyn Wethington is an outreach coordinator for The Edmund Burke Institute. She is also a student at the University of Missouri's School of Journalism where she is majoring in Strategic Communications with a minor in Political Science.