to the editor: By advocating the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools, writer Josh Hammer, like most radical conservatives, would take the nation back to its antebellum days, before the Civil War Amendments to the Constitution were ratified (“The First Amendment was never intended to separate church and state.” January 23). It provides an outdated argument: that the First Amendment clause prohibiting Congress from establishing religion is only a proscription against the federal government, leaving state governments free to do whatever they want regarding religion.
He Civil War Amendments It totally changed the relationship of the federal government with the states. Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that each state must obey almost the entire Bill of Rights. Therefore, states cannot establish religion, including not choosing which religious doctrines, including the Ten Commandments, to promote in schools.
Hammer claims that the commandments were introduced by Judaism and spread throughout the world by Christianity, but ignores the fact that there are different versions of the commandments, depending on the religion or religious sect. Some later Christian versions have changed the original Jewish version, for example by omitting the prohibition on graven images. Some Christian sects place the commandments in a different order. Whose version would you like schools to display in their classrooms?
As for your claim that it is hypocritical for the United States Supreme Court to have a frieze over its entrance containing a statue of Moses holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments and not allow a similar display in schools, you evidently have not ogled the statue. the tablets they are blank.
Robert J. Switzer, West Hollywood
..
to the editor: I often agree with Hammer's observations, but not this time. Their conclusion that religion should have a vital place in public schools is misleading at best.
He cites no evidence that the founders intended the First Amendment to bind the national government in order to free the states to establish a state-sponsored religion.
James Madison opposed religious establishments at all levels. The exclusively federal language of the First Amendment reflects political and constitutional limits, not Madison's preference. There is no documented evidence that he intended to preserve the power of the state establishment; The documents we have demonstrate the opposite.
Madison wrote in her Memorial and protest (1785) that established churches corrupt both church and state. There is no letter, argument for legislation, committee, or convention document in which Madison says that the First Amendment was designed to allow state establishments.
Gary Hartzell, Manhattan Beach
..
to the editor: Hammer denies that the First Amendment of the Constitution establishes a separation between Church and State. It fails to live up to this statement.
You are wrong on both counts here: “America was founded on ecumenical biblical principles and the Ten Commandments, the source of much Western morality.” It is false that the United States was founded on ecumenical biblical principles and the Ten Commandments. It is false that the Ten Commandments are the source of Western morality.
Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution of the United States show a foundation in biblical principles, whatever they may be. Do “biblical principles” promote democracy and freedom from the tyranny of a monarch? Do they promote a republican form of government, the separation of powers, and the human rights found in the Amendments to the Constitution? Any student of religion, history, and government would say “no.”
The claim that the Ten Commandments are the “source” of Western morality is equally unfounded. Surely Western “morality” includes the rights of all people, an eventual prohibition of slavery and the recognition of women's rights, obtained after a long struggle. It also includes the effort to limit war and the definition of what could be called a “just war.” None of this follows from any interpretation of the Ten Commandments. Hammer is surely delusional on these points.
Juan Bernal, Santa Ana.
