hat sin hath Louisiana committed in mandating the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school? According to the plaintiff in the newly minted suit Roake v. Brumley, Louisiana is harming children by making them think about God.
The plaintiff stated, “The Ten Commandments displays required under state law will create an unwelcoming and oppressive school environment for children, like ours, who don’t believe in the state’s official version of scripture. We believe that no child should feel excluded in public school because of their family’s faith tradition.”
If looking at the Ten Commandments in school is unwelcoming and oppressive, then does seeing an adult or peer wearing a crucifix, in school or on a team, cause a nervous breakdown? What about the presence of a church or house of worship? Does the plaintiff live in a town without one lest his children feel uncomfortable by its presence in their neighborhood? Does he choose routes to avoid driving past churches whose open doors and “Welcome” signs could be perceived as tools of coldhearted oppression?
As pro-lifers learned this June while challenging the abortion pill in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, plaintiffs cannot file suit because they do not like a law. They must first demonstrate they are harmed by it. In Roake, the plaintiff speculates that the Ten Commandments will hurt his children’s feelings. No harm has been done to date. No harm may even be done at all. Yet harm is alleged.
Did Thomas Jefferson pine for a “wall of separation” between Church and State because he feared that too much religion could hurt Americans’ feelings? No. Jefferson expressed the opposite in his Notes on the State of Virginia: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
The Roake plaintiff has company. A New York Times columnist laments that politicians who invoke religion “typically alienate people like me whose principles do not stem from belief in a god.” Unlike Jefferson, the columnist won’t live and let live: politicians’ God-laden words, though they echo the Declaration, apparently strike a mortal blow to her ego.
Post-Christian America is pluralistic, the Times columnist scolds, so “neither the Bible nor Judeo-Christian values are universal.” I’m not sure when unanimity became a requirement for doing business in America. If it is, then we can cancel politics, education, sports, entertainment, food and beverages, and medicine.
Public displays of the Ten Commandments and of religion more broadly differ from “Christian Nationalism,” which supposedly seeks to impose Christian morality on America (as was once the case, but I digress). Public displays make statements in favor of religion but do not – and cannot – compel belief.
These statements are free exercises of religion, whether they come from public entities, schools, or private citizens. Opponents, prioritizing emotion over reason, wield the victim card in response. Seeing or thinking about religion can make certain people feel bad – oppressed, alienated, unwelcome – so Constitutional rights should take a back seat to personal feelings. The fragile psychological self, to use Carl Trueman’s term, has issued a new commandment: Thou shall not damage another’s self-esteem nor upset his worldview.
Leaving aside the often-disregarded feelings of those who object to Pride Month or sex education in public schools, perhaps we can consider the contradiction inherent in rejecting statements of religious belief, such as posting the Ten Commandments, while claiming to hold, as the Times columnist writes, “that what many Americans value in this country is its inclusion and protection of everyone, regardless of their beliefs.”
Clearly, not all beliefs are considered equal before the law, and certainly not before public opinion.
When it comes to religious beliefs in post-Christian America – especially supernatural beliefs that comprise the first tablet of the Ten Commandments – there is no means to impose them. Is it really so terrible for a nonbeliever to read, “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods besides me,” or “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain,” or “Keep holy the sabbath”? For a nonbeliever, is this not meaningless talk? Then why the hysteria and lawsuits over some speech they think is a fantasy? How can something that is not real be unwelcoming and oppressive?
The a-religious Jefferson, not today’s anti-religious zealots, provided a workable standard for an authentic pluralism that does not discriminate: if the religious belief does not cause physical harm, it is no harm at all, be it displayed in government schools or on politicians’ posters. The old adage taught to school children – now modified to satisfy the plaintiff in Roake – strikes the right cord: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but religious beliefs will never hurt me.”
Of course, proper religious beliefs, as Catholics well know, matter – but, in defending the free exercise of religion, we will take things one step at a time. The Ten Commandments and religious beliefs can be brought to the public square by anyone. Let those without eyes to see and ears to hear turn away and quit making much ado about what – for them – is allegedly nothing.
Source: © 2024 The Catholic Thing.
