When the State Takes Over Religion

Tennessee Republicans want the state to join the club of states pushing the Ten Commandments into public school classrooms. It's a move that ought to set up alarm bells in Christian churches all across the state.

House Bill 47 uses the standard dodge for justifying this violation of the First Amendment-- the Ten Commandments sold as a "historically significant" document.

Louisiana has similar dopey law on the books, currently being challenged in court as unconstitutional (which it is). Texas also currently requires to post the decalogue in classrooms, and that's in the courts, too.  Indiana is trying to run a bill through its legislature, though like Tennessee, it's trying to hedge its bets by making the posting of the commandments voluntary rather than mandatory, because maybe if you violate the First Amendment just a little on a local level, it's not quite so unconstitutional (spoiler alert: it's still unconstitutional).

The loophole that states try to fly through is one that suggests that if you teach Bible stuff for a secular purpose, that's okey dokey. Hence the repeated technique of calling to post the commandments next to documents like the Bill of Rights and the Constitution (presumably none of the supporters would be cool with a caption reading "Post THIS violates THAT"). Tennessee's bill just includes the Ten Commandments in a list of other documents.

Violation of the First Amendment? Absolutely. But Christians ought to be alarmed. 

This is the state telling people of faith how best to understand their own sacred texts ("The Ten Commandments handed down by God are just like the Constitution written by humans"). This is, in fact, the state telling everyone what the sacred text actually says (there are, in fact, multiple versions of the Ten Commandments in the Bible, and any state-approved version is also a state-edited version). 

And this is the state playing religious favorites. In Louisiana, the Hindu community said that if we're posting "historically significant" scripture, the Bhagavad Gita belongs up there, too. Expect other religions to do the same (and probably the Satanic Temple, too), requiring someone in state government to declare which religions are or are not "historically significant." In the case of Tennessee, the law's list includes "and other significant documents," meaning the local school board is going to get to make big decisions about both religion and history. There's no way that can end badly.

Folks who applaud these kinds of bills always imagine that their own version of religion will be the winner, that their version of faith will be ascendant. They should develop better imaginations. Giving the state the power to pick winners and losers in the world of religion is just dangerously dumb. It has never ever in history worked out well, which is undoubtedly why the framers were so committed to keeping government out of religion. 

I wish I knew who said this originally, but I'll keep repeating it-- when you mix religion and politics, you get politics. Laws like the ones proposed in Tennessee and Indiana ought to have everyone lined up in opposition, and Christians ought to be in the front of the line.