Ten Commandments on Trial

This is a snippet from a NYT article abut the upcoming Supreme Court hearing issues on the display of the Ten Commandments in governmental buildings. Anyone who regularly reads my blog knows my feelings on this issue - we should not (links to past posts here and here)

The article says:

At the same event, Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a law firm established by the Rev. Pat Robertson that litigates for evangelicals and other religious communities, offered a different perspective. The Ten Commandments have acquired secular as well as religious meaning, he said, and have come to be "uniquely symbolic of law."

Mr. Sekulow noted that the marble frieze in the courtroom of the Supreme Court Building itself depicts Moses, holding the tablets, in a procession of "great lawgivers of history." (The 17 other figures in the frieze include Hammurabi, Confucius, Justinian, Napoleon, Chief Justice John Marshall and Muhammad, who holds the Koran.) "Does the Supreme Court now issue an opinion that requires a sandblaster to come in? I think not," Mr. Sekulow said.

The Bush administration, which has filed briefs urging the justices to uphold the displays in both cases, takes the same approach, calling the Ten Commandments "a uniquely potent and commonly recognized symbol of the law."

The problem with that rationale, that it is only historical, is a farce. While the supreme court has Moses with the Ten Commandments in a long line of other historical laws, it does so in a historical sense, and without particular deference to Judeo-Christian faith over any other, over even to religious law over secular law. I have not yet heard of a case involving the Ten Commandments being ordered out of a courtroom, while leaving Mohammad or Hammurabi's law (which is the origin of much of the Ten Commandments).

It is quite obvious that Judge Moore, former Alabama State Court Justice, had no intention of displaying the commandments in a historical sense, or with any other form of law that has had an impact on Western Law. He publically stated it was because of religious convictions. If they were serious about this line of reasoning, why are they not also pushing for other religious as well as secular law origins? I have no problem with using the Ten Commandments as an educational tool. But, this is anything but educational.