It’s been months since the hotly debated question of church and state has come up in Mesa County. Not so in Pleasant Grove, Utah, a small city between Provo and Salt Lake City. Its religious dispute made it to the Supreme Court last week.
Like many communities, Pleasant Grove has a monument listing the Ten Commandments on city property.
A Salt Lake City-based group called Summum has sued — not to get the monument removed but to allow Summum to post its guiding principles — called the Seven Aphorisms — in the same park.
The obvious question, if that is approved, is where it all ends. Must communities across the country, in order to keep their Ten Commandments, also post monuments to Hindu, Muslim, Native American and Wiccan beliefs? What about other philosophies or religions not yet created?
The issue of separation of church and state remains one which reasonable people can and do differ, and have for a long time.
But it will take the wisdom of Solomon for the high court to fashion a decision in this case — a case that will affect many other communities — which remains true to the Constitution and respects this nation’s undeniable Judeo-Christian roots.
Comments
By Loki
Nov 19, 2008 12:17 PM | Link to this
Slaves and Prisoners helped build this country. There was a race of people in this country before the Judeo-Christians got here. Now where are they now? I wonder what these people think of those Judeo-Christian principals or the 10 commandments? Judeo-Christian principals are not always pretty.
Human rights means that if it is good for one person then it is good for all people. Or maybe we should take the right to vote away from women.
No religion needs to dictate the laws of our country. Read the amendments of the constitution. It is very simple. Many citizens just want to complicate it to justify their own agendas.
Loki
By Nastrond
Nov 18, 2008 9:23 AM | Link to this
Judeo-Christian roots? Hardly. Our nation's laws are mostly modeled after English Common Law, not the Ten Commandments of the Hebrew Bible. Furthermore, our system of government owes far more to pagan Greco-Roman ideology and philosophy than the tribalist and myopic governance systems outlined in either the Hebrew Bible or New Testament. It is time for people to stop repeating the debunked and ignorant chestnut that our country has "Judeo-Christian roots." The framers of our Constitution never intended to establish a theocracy - despite what some 'true believers' may aver. Such assertions only reveal a misapprehension of Judaism, Christianity and the founding of our country.
By Danielle
Nov 18, 2008 9:22 AM | Link to this
Judeo-Christian roots? Hardly. Our nation's laws are mostly modeled after English Common Law, not the Ten Commandments of the Hebrew Bible. Furthermore, our system of government owes far more to pagan Greco-Roman ideology and philosophy than the tribalist and myopic governance systems outlined in either the Hebrew Bible or New Testament. It is time for people to stop repeating the debunked and ignorant chestnut that our country has "Judeo-Christian roots." The framers of our Constitution never intended to establish a theocracy - despite what some 'true believers' may aver. Such assertions only reveal a misapprehension of Judaism, Christianity and the founding of our country.
By Scott
Nov 17, 2008 11:04 AM | Link to this
Whether this country actually has Judeo-Christian roots or not, the framers of the Constitution established a system to prevent government from meddling in religion, and vice-versa. You cannot claim to be religiously impartial if you only allow one sect to display their monuments on public property. The only two options are to allow anyone to display whatever they want, or to allow no religious monuments at all. The latter is by far the simplest and cheapest alternative.
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