OH: Ten Commandments Time

Next week Ohio's legislature will reportedly hold its first hearing on SB 34, a bill to display "certain historical documents in public schools."

The bill was sponsored by Senator Terry Johnson and co-sponsored by seven other Ohio worthies, and it at least attempts to provide some fig leaves to go with its aim of requiring school boards to post the Ten  Commandments in each classroom. The board "shall select" at least one of the following:

The Mayflower Compact
The Declaration of Independence
The Northwest Ordinance
The mottoes of the United States and Ohio
The Ten Commandments
The Magna Carta
The Bill of Rights
The United States Constitution
The Articles of Confederation

(And before you freak out, the Articles of Confederation are not from 1860, but from 1777--essentially the first attempt at a Constitution).

Again, the choice is required, and in the hands of the local board of education. Will plenty of districts choose one of the secular options? Sure they will. But for those who want to breeze past the First Amendment and do some religion establishment in the classroom, this bill provides cover. 

In fact, the local board can even erect "a monument or other marker" inscribed with one or more of these documents, and put it anywhere on school grounds. 

The district may take contributions of either funding or the actual displays. They tried this in Texas with "In God We Trust" posters, and Patriot Mobile, the Oh So Very Christian mobile phone company donated a bunch of posters. Of course, so did folks who incorporated rainbows and arabic writing, leading a huge dustup over just what sort of trust students were supposed to be tossing toward which gods. The Ohio law includes a clause that if the contributor tries to tell the school how to do their display, the school can turn them down. 

The Ohio display has to include an explanation of the historical importance of the item displayed, otherwise it would be obvious that the school had put up a religious display. This "historical importance" dodge is popular with the religious display-in-school crowd, at least until the Supreme Court finally rules that it would inhibit the free exercise of christianists not to be able to impose their religion on schools.

No word in the bill about which version of the decalogue schools are supposed to use. 

An actual Christian might be a bit put off by the way this bill equates a sacred text with some political documents, as if the founding fathers and the Great I Am are pretty much on equal footing, much like the Louisiana Ten Commandments law suggests putting up posters that equate Moses with Speaker Mike Johnson. 

Will the Ohio legislature show some sense? One never knows. Stay tuned.