who blogs at Dirigo Blue and Kennebec Blues
Posting the ten commandments is one of those right wing made up litmus tests that all GOP and tea party candidates are expected to impulsively support. And now that test is happening in Maine in the wake of Olympia Snowe deciding not to run for re-election. At a family values forum in a Bangor area church, hopefuls did their very best to pass that test:
Film credit Kos Member Spud1
This exercise seems to find its appeal in the “what’s the big deal” nature of both the query and response. Some answer briefly like GOP National Committee Member Rick Bennett to get the litmus test passed while others like long running tea partier Scott D’Amboise, State Treasurer Bruce Poliquin, and State Senator Debra Plowman try to get some convoluted pandering in as well that turns out to be more simpleminded when listened to closely than a simple explanation that is understandable.
Yet all the typical responses ignore a key division in the “common law” assumptions we make about the generally accepted precepts about not stealing, killing and coveting along with the reasonable sounding proverb of honoring one’s parents from the hard and specific religious demands that form the initial commandments. All political pandering explanations fall very far short of providing any rational reasoning for a secular government to display on our public property and therefore secular space a version of the following more specific religious demands of the ten commandments:
Thou Shalt Have No Gods Before Me
20:2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou Shalt Not Make Graven Images
20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
20:6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Thou Shalt Not Take the Lord's Name in Vain
20:7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Remember to Keep Holy the Sabbath
20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Unless we are, as State Senator Debra Plowman seems to believe, a nation of one specific religion that only tolerates others and atheists and therefore able to be theocratic in our laws, it would seem that above is not some placid general behavior reminder but a public policy enshrinement and outward establishment of one religious set of values above all others. The GOP embrace of the ten commandments should be exposed for what it really represents - the right’s willingness to move this nation toward a theocratic republic that while not as onerous as that of Iraq and similar countries still either by convenient design or officially concentrates the institutional power of church and state on the path of shared interests that will be exclusionary for many.
There are many different versions of the ten commandments, for the sake of debate the extended excerpt above to capture the essential specific religious message as broadly as possible for the first four (often combined into three) from Chapter 20 of Exodus in the King James Version of the Bible is offered above.