The Ten Commandments Exterminators
By Hans Zeiger

 

The Ten Commandment exterminators are out in full force. All around America, public displays of the Ten Commandments are the object of lawsuits, ACLU threats, city council battles, and civil disobedience. As Slate magazine writes, “It’s starting to be the Summer of Decalogues.”

 

The most notable case is that of Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore whose 5,300 pound Ten Commandments monument in the State Supreme Court building was ordered to be removed by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals last month. On July 22, Moore announced that he will appeal the decision directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Christian activist groups have rallied to the defense of the Alabama commandments display with calls for non-violent civil resistance to preserve the monument if necessary.

 

In Kansas City, Kansas, the unified county/city council voted 8-0 on Thursday to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Wyandotte County Courthouse after the American Civil Liberties Union threatened a major lawsuit. The commandments have been located at the courthouse for over forty years when the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated them to the county.

 

Another ACLU fulmination is in the works at Wesley Bolin Plaza east of the Arizona state capitol in Phoenix. A monument of the Ten Commandments, donated in 1964, sits on state park land. The administrator of the park says she will advise the governor to keep the historical marker in place. And if they do, the ACLU will sue. 

 

In Miles City, Montana, a group of citizens continues to protest a three-year old ACLU consent decree to remove a Ten Commandments plaque at the Custer County Courthouse. The ACLU wrote a letter to the county attorney last week threatening a second lawsuit if the commandments remain.

 

In Everett, Washington, a resident named Jesse Card called on Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) when he became “offended” by a Ten Commandments display in front of the Everett Police Department that was also donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1959. On July 24, AU filed suit in federal court, stating that the monument "conveys a message of state endorsement of religion in general, and a specific religious viewpoint in particular, and thereby ostracizes citizens who do not conform to the religious beliefs that the monument expresses."

 

Who, in their right mind, could possibly be offended by the Ten Commandments?

 

It isn’t because the Ten Commandments are discriminatory of religious beliefs that the Left is taking the time and effort to pry the decalogue off of war memorials, courthouses, and town hall buildings. The world’s three largest religions – Christianity, Judaism, and Islam – teach and practice the Ten Commandments, as do smaller religions like Mormonism and Jehovah Witness.

 

The real reason why the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State are so aggressive about taking down the Ten Commandments is because they’re interested in breaking the Ten Commandments. The atheists and moral relativists who work for and contribute to the anti-commandment cause are itching to open up the floodgates of sin and ride the waves of dark, sticky, smelly immoral muck as it oozes over the cities and plains of America.

 

In other words, the people who are offended by the Ten Commandments are the ones who are eager to make it easier to violate them. They may not be murderers, rapists, and robbers, but they probably want greater leeway in the sentencing of thugs. They probably don’t cheat on taxes, but they didn’t mind when a president lied in court. They don’t want you to have a gun, but they don’t care about criminals with guns. They’re the same folks who want to trash the fifth and seventh commandments about the family by declaring a right to sodomy and doing away with traditional marriage.

 

The Left doesn’t want us to worship God and follow His commandments, but they would like us to worship the gods of ultra-tolerance on the graven altar of moral relativism.

 

America needs the Ten Commandments. Our civil laws, our culture, our families, our communities, our freedom – all of it depends on a moral law that is higher than the devices of mortal man. As the Father of the Constitution, James Madison said, “We stake the future of this country on our ability to govern ourselves under the principles contained in the Ten Commandments.”

 

In the Old Testament, touching the ark of the covenant containing the commandments was forbidden for non-Levites and unclean Levites. Even today in America, the Ten Commandments are sacred. The Ten Commandments exterminators amongst us ought to leave their hands off of the moral law of God.

 

Hans Zeiger, 18, is a Seattle Times columnist, activist, and student leader. As an Eagle Scout, he is president of the Scout Honor Coalition. He can be contacted at hanszeiger@yahoo.com.