Ten Commandments replacing abortion as key Christian issue, scholar says

The Associated Press

01.07.00

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Garrard County (Ky.) magistrate Ronnie Lane, left, and ministers Jerry Browning, center, and Daryl Hodge bow their heads in prayer before hanging Ten Commandments in Garrard County Courthouse on Dec. 23, 1999, in Lancaster, Ky. A crowd of onlookers applauded as document was hoisted onto wall, surrounded by government documents that mention God. Frame and its contents were paid for privately but approved by county for hanging, despite an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against three other counties for similar actions.

PIKEVILLE, Ky. — With its message on yard signs, book covers and on the walls of courthouses and public classrooms, a Ten Commandments movement is pushing forward in Kentucky and nationwide.

Like anti-abortion legislation before it, the Ten Commandments has become the key issue for Christian groups, said Frank Flinn, an adjunct professor of religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

Proponents argue that the framework for the United States' system of laws is based on the commandments, and the religious rules should be displayed in schools. The postings are legal if purchased with private funds, they say.

Janet Parshall, spokeswoman for Family Research Council, a Christian lobbying group in Washington, D.C., says the movement stems from a "heart cry." Her organization has distributed 750,000 Ten Commandments book covers.

"I don't know, for example, if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had walked past a copy of the Ten Commandments if that might have been a deterrent to their behavior, but I'm willing to risk the try," Parshall said, referring to the two shooters in the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado.

The American Civil Liberties Union disagrees.

In Kentucky, the ACLU filed suit Nov. 18 against McCreary and Pulaski counties and the Harlan County schools after the commandments were publicly displayed. The ACLU cites the 1980 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Kentucky case, Stone v. Graham, that the posting of the commandments in schools amounted to an unconstitutional government promotion of religion. The suits are pending.

Despite the lawsuits, Christian groups cannot go wrong by promoting the Ten Commandments, Flinn says, at least in the court of public opinion.

"Look at the opposition," said Flinn, who studies cult groups and is a First Amendment expert. "The opposition is immediately put in a weak position. If I tell you, 'No, the Ten Commandments don't belong in a courtroom or in a classroom,' then automatically I look like I'm for murder and fornication and theft."

Roy Moore, an Alabama circuit judge who refused to take down the commandments posted in his courtroom in 1995, has spoken about his case at Christian rallies across the country — including one Nov. 7 in Corbin, Ky., that 3,000 people attended. He encourages school boards to post the Ten Commandments even if it means a costly lawsuit for the district.

In Altoona, Penn., religious leaders and school officials reached an agreement in August allowing for a new comparative course in religions and an after-school Ten Commandments club after the issue arose.

In November, California's Val Verde Board of Education voted to reverse its policy of displaying the Ten Commandments in district offices after the ACLU threatened to sue.

So Kentucky, where the issue may be settled in court this year, is not alone in the movement, Parshall said.

"The role they (Kentucky officials) might be playing right now is the role of the sacrificial lamb since they're under the cross hairs of the ACLU," Parshall said. "So they're the ones that are currently in the barrel of the gun of the ACLU if you will, but they really are not a whole lot different than a whole lot of other places across the country."

Roger Pilon, vice president of legal affairs at Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, says that posting the Ten Commandments in public classrooms and courthouses amounts to tyranny.

"That's the dirty little secret about this whole affair. Nothing in our [U.S.] Constitution prohibits people from expressing and supporting their beliefs as vigorously as they want, provided they do it in the private sector," Pilon said. "What these people seem to want is public sanction for their views and that precisely is what the Constitution prohibits in the establishment clause of the First Amendment."

Flinn says the postings are legal only if other religions are given the same opportunity.

"My rule is one in, all in," Flinn said. "If one's out, the rest [are] out."

Don Swarthout, a Denver minister who helped plan the Corbin rally, says he believes the movement is catching on because people realize the country has deteriorated since prayer was taken out of schools in 1962.

In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Engel v. Vitale that government officials could not lead public school students in prayer. The high court did not ban voluntary student prayer in the public schools.

But Swarthout says he believes the Ten Commandments should be more of a moral issue than a political one. He is changing his ministry to focus more on the Ten Commandments but won't be pushing schools to post the Ten Commandments.

"If the Ten Commandments were not in the schools we could still have good moral values if people tried to live their life by the Ten Commandments," Swarthout said. "The fact that they hang in the school doesn't immediately fix our schools."

The movement is also influencing merchandise sales at Christian bookstores.

Jim Ratliff, owner of Lighthouse Christian Bookstore in Pikeville, said he sold four to five times more Ten Commandments merchandise such as plaques and yards signs in 1999 compared with 1998.

The Bible does not change, but what is requested by customers does, Ratliff says.

"There will come a day where customers are looking for something else to grab onto," he said.

In West Virginia, Logan County school officials have posted the Ten Commandments in schools as part of a historical document display. Other documents in that display include the Bill of Rights and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. A display also is posted in that state at the Clay County Courthouse.