Following in the footsteps of the endlessly self-aggrandizing Judge Moore, yet another Alabama judge, Ashley McKathan, has jumped into the Ten Commandments fray. McKathan took Moore's nonsense even further, actually embroidering the ten commandments onto his judicial robe. My first reaction was that this had to be a parody, but it's not. He's actually serious:
Covington County Presiding Circuit Court Judge Ashley McKathan said he ordered the robe and had it embroidered using his own money. He said he did it because he felt strongly that he should stand up for his personal religious convictions."Truth is an absolute value," McKathan said, "and you can't divorce the law from the truth. I feel we must resist the modern attempts to discount the truth."
Imagine for a moment that a Muslim judge (leaving aside the fact that one can scarcely imagine a Muslim being made a judge in our society regardless of how well qualified he is) came to the courtroom with various suras from the Quran stitched into his robe proclaiming that anyone who ate pork or did not pray 5 times a day toward Mecca was violating the commands of Allah. Imagine he defended it by saying, "Truth is an absolute value and you cannot separate the word of Allah as expressed in the Holy Quran from the law." Can you even estimate the scope of the outcry coming from the very same people who support this sort of thing? The judge would be fortunate to escape with his life (and I mean that quite literally), much less his job. But of course, he has the full support of Ex-Judge Moore:
"The recognition of the God who gave us the Ten Commandments is fundamental to an understanding of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution," Moore said. "I applaud Judge McKathan. It is time for our judiciary to recognize the moral basis of our law."
Such nonsense. Think about this for a moment. At least 7 of the ten commandments are not only not the "basis of our law", they would be blatantly unconstitutional in this country if they were made into laws. The laws against murder and theft are of course part of our law, but they are part of every nation's laws, including nations that had nothing to do with the Judeo-Christian tradition. They are universally forbidden in any religious or philosophical tradition. The injunction against lying could be a law in some circumstances - lying to a police officer, for instance, or committing perjury - but not as a general rule. The other 7 commandments have nothing whatsoever to do with civil or criminal law and are entirely unconstitutional in our system. So not only can they not form the "basis of our laws", they can't even be made into laws in the US at all. But hey, why let a little reality get in the way of some perfectly good demagoguery?
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I find that this practice is much more acceptable than hanging them on a wall somewhere. This is much more clearly the judge's own personal expression of the 10 Commandments, and not a state expression.
Since there is no standard judicial uniform, if Renquist can have stripes on his sleeves, this judge can embroider what he wants on his robes, within the standards of decency.
Not that I'm defending his actions, or the current crap the right keeps spouting about these - but there are more than three that are currently law in the US.
The 3rd (i'm using the jewish interpretations here) -You shalt not swear falsely by the name of the Lord... could be argued to be the basis for our perjury laws.
The 5th "Honor your father and your mother..." Ok, it's a real stretch, but minors don't really have much in the way of rights and can be legally charged in some situations for disobeying their parents. Yeah - I can't really find an example at the moment. IANAL.
Finally, the 7th "You shall not commit adultery" There are still adultery laws on the books in a lot of states - and in theory could still be prosecuted. The U.S. Military, under the UCMJ does prosecute service members for adultery. Write or wrong, it's there.
I'm really not defending any of these people - but . . .
The 3rd (i'm using the jewish interpretations here) -You shalt not swear falsely by the name of the Lord... could be argued to be the basis for our perjury laws.
And I said as much, but of course the commandment is much broader than that and perjury is one of the very few situations in which lying is a matter of law.
The 5th, as you say, is a real stretch.
Finally, the 7th "You shall not commit adultery" There are still adultery laws on the books in a lot of states - and in theory could still be prosecuted. The U.S. Military, under the UCMJ does prosecute service members for adultery. Write or wrong, it's there.
There are lots of laws still on the books that are unconstitutional, so the mere existence of them has no bearing on the constitutionality question. And the military has lots of laws that would be unconstitutional in a civilian setting, and that is appropriate in many circumstances.
A more likely example than your imagine-a-Moslem-on-the-bench fantasy: suppose a federal judge [with life tenure] announces that he [or she] is an athiest, and that the non-existence of god is so obvious a truth, that he cannot help but doubt the veracity of a witness who "swears to God" his truthfulness.
I'm willing to bet that somewhere in the ranks of federal judges there is an athiest or two rattling around.... Why according to our brethren on the right, you can't swing a cat these days without hitting an "athiestic" federal judge.
It could happen....
Ah, the comedic stylings of "Judge" Moore. I'd like to know what the 10 commandments have to do at all with the 1st amendment- the amendment that guarantees freedom of speech, not to mention separation of church and state.
Now lets look at the first commandment- "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."
Call me crazy, but this strikes me as being about as far from the first amendment as one can get. How does one become a Judge in Alabama anyway? Do you win it in boxes of Cracker Jacks? I thought these people were required to actually know the law for crissake. The fact that Judge Moore would continue to say such ludicrous things in public, and now this BS from McKathan, seems to suggest the opposite.
What I always liked about the 10 commandments is that they are supposed to be some great rules of that would create the perfect society. Yet, there is no prohibition against rape or assault/battery. But wanting what your neighbor has? yep, got that covered. (It's a no-no).
As for Brew, I can see your intent, but "Honor thy mother and father" does not have any outs for the case of horrible parents. So an abused/molested child must still honor his or her parents. That's a good set of rules there. I sure hope we get those on the books ASAP!!
The 700 Club ran a news story today about the famous atheist who recanted and is now an advocate of the theory that the universe is Intelligently Designed. Gotta love those guys! God bless 'em all.
The 700 Club ran a news story today about the famous atheist who recanted and is now an advocate of the theory that the universe is Intelligently Designed. Gotta love those guys! God bless 'em all.
Well you can expect lots of crowing from them about Antony Flew's "conversion". Doesn't bother me in the least. He's converted from atheism to deism, which is something I did years ago. I think his reasoning is fairly poor, but then I'm sure some would think mine is too. Either way, there's a much bigger difference between Christianity and deism than there is between deism and atheism.
I gather that Flew's not even a deist; he just thinks that some sort of Aristotelian "first cause/unmoved mover" is probably necessary for complexity. Such an entity doesn't even need to be conscious. The image my undergrad professor used was popcorn spilling out of a kettle, like in carnival/movie theater popcorn poppers. In the case of the unmoved mover, the big difference is that it's everything else in the universe that's spilling from the kettle.
You know I understand the argument and I support the ACLU. But in practice I could see myself benefiting if judges emblazoned slogans of their personal philosophy on their robes. If I'm contesting a speeding ticket it would be useful to know ahead of time if a judge was a racist Georgia cracker, a judge who hates white people and supports the black panthers, a hot babe who advocates free sex, or a guy with the Bill of Rights on his robe.
I'm cool with the bill of rights on his robe.
In fact I might have to buy myself a robe with the bill of rights just because I like them so much.
I suspect that this "judge" is very politically astute. I believe that, in Alabama, judges are elected--in large parts of the US they are--and he's learned from Roy Moore how to play to the rube voters down there. That's how Moore got himself moved from an obscure backwaters trial judge to being the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in short order. I doubt that either of them gives a tinker's damn for the 10 Suggestions, other than the fact that they can get him elected to higher office.
I first read about this on another blog. Someone quipped that the judge's robe must have looked like a wizard's robe, and I was wondering whether the judge spent too much time watching SciFi Channel mini-series.
BTW, I do have to admit that I get something of a chuckle out of the last commandment, which reads, in part "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ass..." Maybe it's because, since I'm gay, it seems to me that there's a double entendre hiding there somewhere.
raj-
I suspect you're right. Judge Moore did go from being a backwoods nobody state judge to the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2 years, and yes those positions are elected in that state. And it is of course home to the nutball who wants to ban any books with gay characters in them. I bet those Christian Exodus people wish they'd have chosen Alabama instead of South Carolina about now.
Speaking of Moore's political ambitions, I seem to recall that he intends to run for the Senate; what better way could there be to shore up support among the local religious fanatics and neoconfederate yahoos who are liable to vote for him than engage in a little popular demagoguery?
Remember, this is Alabama we're talking about; as goofy as something like this might play in any of the Blue (or even some of the Red) states, it's sure to gain him beaucoup votes in an area in which a sizable fraction of the populace would vote for a early-60's version of George Wallace today. It's just a pity that the yahoos who support Moore got more press coverage than any of the people who have to live down there and are horrified by this constant parade of utter bullshit.
Sorry, but those are not the 10 Commandments. Guess the thumpers should actually read their Babble. NONE of the 10 C's (actually more than 10, but here's the "top ten") have ANY connection to our Constitution. Those tablets were dropped by that clumsy oaf Moses. Anyway here are the actual truncated C's: Second Tablets of Stone (Exodus 34) ("the words that were on the first"). 1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god), 2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods, 3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn, 4. All the first-born are mine, 5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest, 6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end, 7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, 8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning, 9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God, 10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk. http://www.positiveatheism.org/crt/whichcom.htm