Townhall.com Michael Medved February 28, 2007
The left’s fiery obsession with removing Ten Commandments monuments from public property throughout the United States may seem odd and irrational but actually reflects the deepest values of contemporary liberalism.
In the last five years alone, the tireless fanatics at the ACLU have invested tens of millions of dollars and countless hours of legal time in lawsuits to yank the Commandments from long-standing displays in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Montana, Georgia, Iowa, Washington State, Nebraska, Texas, Pennsylvania and Florida. In one of the most recent battles, they delayed their litigation in Dixie County, Florida, because they couldn’t find a single local resident to lend a name as plaintiff in a drive to dislocate the tablets from the local court house.
Even for militant separationists like the ACLU, this ferocious hostility to innocuous and generally uncontroversial monuments looks excessive, even self-destructive. The overwhelming majority of Americans instinctively accept the Commandments as a timeless, cherished summary of universal moral precepts. A closer look at the specifics of the Decalogue, however, suggests that it makes good sense for leftists to hate The Big Ten: each one of the commandments contradicts a different pillar of trendy liberal thinking.
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Fr. Hans writes: “Even legal principles draw from a moral grounding and thus require the service of morality to ensure that freedom really remains free. Legal principles don’t stand apart from a larger moral referent.”
Well, until recently your side controlled both houses of Congress. You’ve had the presidency and the Attorney General. You’ve had the power to appoint federal prosecutors and judges. You’ve appointed most of the justices on the Supreme Court.
And then the ACLU intervenes in a single case, dealing with the very laws and legal system over which your side has presided — and it’s supposed to be the end of civilization as we know it.
This reminds me so much of the Schiavo case. Republicans control the Florida legislature. The governor is Republican. The judge who hears the case is a conservative Baptist and Republican. And then a guy brings a case under the very same Florida law over which the Republicans have been presiding for years, and once again it’s the end of civilization. It’s their state, their constitution, their law, their legal procedure, but is the outcome their fault? NO! It’s the fault of some attorney.
And this is how is always works. The Republicans control the machinery, but when there’s an outcome they don’t like, it’s someone else’s fault. I don’t buy it.
Jim writes:
Not the end of civilization but the degradation of culture. When child molestation is defended on the principle that censoring websites the promote and instruct the practice threatens all freedom of speech — disregarding of course the restrictions already in place against cigarette advertising, alcohol billboards near schools, child pornograpy, etc. — then something more is at work than defense of the principle used to justify the position.
Not really. I live in Florida so I probably know more about this than you do. The law, as many of these laws often are, had unintended effects. No one really foresaw a judge using it for capital killing. It has since been revised.
All that aside however, my point upstream is that the ACLU self-promotion is accepted so uncritically by people who should really know better (you and Dean for example). Look at the inconsistencies, for example, eliminating all reference to religious images from the public square unless they are coverd with feces or pornography, in which case no effort must be spared to display them — with both positions defended as “Constitutional”.
Principle, shorn from any moral referent, can be used to justify anything.
Ok, let’s look at this piece by piece.
Fr. Hans writes: “Look at the inconsistencies, for example, eliminating all reference to religious images from the public square . . .”
No, the argument is that the public displays cannot promote a particular religion. Religious art is in a different category, and in fact there are thousands of pieces of religious art in public museums across the country.
Fr. Hans: ” . . . unless they are coverd with feces or pornography . . . ”
Again no. Religious works of art are commonly displayed in public museums. The history of religious art can be taught in public schools. You are referring to one particular exhibit at one particular institution.
Fr. Hans: ” . . . in which case no effort must be spared to display them — with both positions defended as ‘Constitutional’.”
The argument was that refusing to display certain works of art merely because they would offend the sensibilities of certain individuals or groups constitutes censorship.
Here we get into some interesting issues. I have heard about some of the art in these “controversial” exhibits, and frankly, in many cases it just sounds like bad art to me. There is all sorts of bad art around, much of it non-religious. At the university where I used to work, there was a large “sculpture” consisting of a piece of rusted metal that looked very much like like a scrapped hatch cover taken from an old freighter. Why it was thought an appropriate decoration for the School of Nursing is a mystery to me, thought it may have been appropriate outside of an establishment dealing in scrap metal. A wing of our state capital has some bent pieces of metal sticking out of it which one of my “liberal” college professors derisively called the “Smashed Bird Memorial.” Yeah, there’s bad art all over the place, and why public money is spent on this stuff is beyond me. And just became someone sticks dried poop on a canvas doesn’t mean that he’s making a profound statement.
In addition, I don’t think it’s wrong to considered the sensibilities of the public — religious or otherwise –when selecting pieces for an art exhibit. I suppose someone could assemble a “Road Kill” exhibit, with photographs of animals that had been run over by traffic, complete with guts and blood. But why?
That said, I don’t think that a piece of art should automatically be excluded from an exhibit merely because it would be offensive to someone’s religious sensibilities. I personally would not like to view an exhibit of inspirational paintings of the Reverend Pat Robertson, but the fact of my offense would not be a reason to cancel the exhibit.
But people need to pick and choose their battles. When they go to bat for every piece of dung and bottle of urine it just makes them look foolish, incapable of discerning good art from bad.
Note 53. Jim writes:
Yes, that’s the argument, but the argument and the intent are two different things. First of all, the interpretation that all religious references must be removed from the public square is based on an interpretation of the First Amendment that is hardly settled. Secondly, there is the factor of intimidating municipalities into compliance through the threat of unending lawsuits. Thirdly, there is the reaching into organizations like the Boy Scouts, because it retains a Christian character in the character building of young boys, also falls under this ostensible public prohibition.
Now if you want to reduce these initiatives one argument, fine, but let’s be clear that the one argument is merely one piece of a much larger cultural broadside.
The real danger with the ACLU is its quasi totalitarian agenda in the name of freedom, much like how politically correct thinking seeks to quash debate through moral opprobrium rather than the engagement of ideas. Look at the ACLU war against the Boy Scouts for example while defending NAMBLA. Does any reasonably minded person really this is good for children? Does any historically minded person really believe the founders would support this turn of events?
Sure, but it is much more than that as well. Don’t be fooled Jim. The ACLU doesn’t operate with the same detachment that you take to the questions. The cultural vandalism is deliberate. See my piece: The Artist as Vandal: Culture and the desecration of religious symbols. To the ACLU, law is in service to ideology.