Ninth Circuit Sued For Displaying Ten Commandments

[truthpusher]

http://www.foxreno.com/news/4178205/detail.html

Ninth Circuit Sued For Displaying Ten Commandments

POSTED: 4:09 pm PST February 8, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO -- The federal appeals court that ruled the Pledge of Allegiance was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion is being sued for allegedly displaying the Ten Commandments on its seal and courthouses.

(snip)

In his lawsuit against the San Francisco-based court, he said the certificate admitting him contains the court's seal which unlawfully contains what he believes is a tablet object that "represents the Judeo-Christian Decalogue commonly referred to as the Ten Commandments."

Cathy Catterson, the court's clerk, said the seal highlights a woman, known as "the Majesty of the Law" who is reading a large book. At her feet is a tablet with 10 unreadable lines on it, what Donlon believes is the Ten Commandments.

(snip)

In 2002, the appeals court sided with an atheist father who challenged the words "under God" in the pledge, ruling that the pledge that public school children recite each day was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

more:

http://www.foxreno.com/news/4178205/detail.html

[ET Awful]

1. Wait a second . . . the lines are unreadable? This case is bullshit.

I'm all for separation of church and state, but this is BULLSHIT.

Why do I get the feeling that the plaintiff in this case is actually a right-wing hack trying to get the public to start ridiculing separation of church and state?

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

2. That sounds plausible.

Do you think it even crossed his mind that the tablet just might refer to another document, written around the time of the founding of our country, that had 10 items on it as well?

[Liberal Veteran]

5. Hmm....whatever could you be referring to?

:shrug:

[Spacejet]

11. Errr

You may want to actually read the document you refer to. I can assure you it has more than 10 lines on it.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

13. So?

It's an artist's conception. And while there are those who would like to believe that the 10 Commandments are carved into our Constitution, they're not.
Isn't it reasonable to think that this federal court would want to honor the Bill of Rights, those most important rights that the founders committed to parchment, when determining cases?
Why honor the 10 Commandments and not the Bill of Rights on the judicial seal of a federal court? That would make no sense.

I personally think the plaintiff is out of whack.

[Spacejet]

14. You may be naive enough

to believe that this is not a depiction of religion, but anyway you spin it it's pretty obvious what the depiction is meant to be.

[dolo amber]

3. "At her feet is a tablet with 10 unreadable lines on it..."

Cheesecake recipe, perhaps? :shrug:

[truthpusher]

4. I kind of got that feeling as well n/t

[truthpusher]

6. can't find aything on the attorney' history...so I don't know? n/t

[Xithras]

7. Here's the seal, it's pretty apparent what they're supposed to represent.

Still, I don't know that it's such a big deal. As long as they aren't readable I don't see the problem.

[ET Awful]

8. They look like two loaves of bread to me :) n/t

[tkmorris]

9. Apparent to who?

Given that protecting the rights of the few against the tyranny of the many is one of the basic responsibilities of the courts, that is to say honoring the Bill of Rights, it isn't too obvious to me what it represents.

[toymachines]

10. i would just as soon call it the bill of rights

sure it probably represents the ten commandments, but so what. let it be whatever you think it is, thats the point of art, and i would call the seal a form of art. i think the case invalid.

[truthpusher]

12. It's an easily recognizable symbol, like a crucifix or a swastika n/t

[happyslug]

16. An easily definable symbol by itself does NOT violate the First Amendment.

The courts have been quite definite about symbols. What appears to be an hoc basis for decisions on religious symbols has become a clearer and clearer test. That test is simple, does the symbol implies that a person will NOT get justice or a fair dealing from the Governmental body that uses the symbol?

Thus large Christmas Cache implies endorsement of Christianity and thus implies that all non-Christians will not be treated the same as Christians. Thus the banning of Creches in Public Places. Larges Crosses or Conspicuous copies of the Ten Commandments also implies endorsement of Christianity and thus banned.

On the other hand it is common for people to use symbols as a shorthand. Al Franken was NOT endorsing Christianity when he wrote "Supply Side Jesus" but using the well know story of Jesus to show the hypocrisy of the GOP. Religious symbols can be used the same way, and NOT be viewed as endorsing that Religion (Remember Al Franken is Jewish). Thus a Cross can be Symbol of Christianity or just a marker for a Grave (Or even that there is a intersection ahead in the road).

Thus just having a religious symbol is NOT enough to get it banned from Government Buildings. The key is does the symbol exclude people? does it intimidate people? If the answer to either of these question is yes, it must be removed. Judge Moore's Ten Commandments monument was clearly an effort to endorse Christianity and thus not permitted (The Monument was even intimidating to Jews based on how it was set up). On the other hand a Bronze copy of the ten Commandments on a Court house wall, that had not been cleaned in 50 years (Other than washing) where it is located among other such monuments (None of which have been cleaned since put up 50 + years ago) is hard to be found to be intimidating or exclusive. This was the basis for keeping a copy of the Ten Commandments on the Wall of the Allegheny County Pennsylvania Courthouse. The Plaque had been on the wall for 50 years, along with a plaque with the Pledge of Allegiance, a VFW commendation sign and a Plaque Honoring Pittsburghers for preventing arms from being set south in 1861. All of these Plaques were on the outside wall the courthouse on a wall not now near the main entrance to the courthouse. Furthermore if you asked people who walked by those plaques 90% would not have know they were they even if they had walked by them for years.

Thus this case is much closer to the Allegheny County Courthouse ruling than Moores ten Commandments. The Symbol has religious roots but no one will be intimidated by its existence, nor can you say it is promoting Christianity (or any other religion) over any other religion. Furthermore the existence of the Symbol for a long period of time without anyone saying it was intimidating is strong evidence that the symbol is NOT intimidating and exclusionary.

Now I avoided the Issue of the Pledge of Allegiance (Through one of the Plaques on the Allegheny County Court House wall is the Pledge). The Ninth Circuit decision on the Pledge did NOT involve the Pledge being on a Plaque but being recited. Forcing someone to say something is a "learning" experience and as such a stricter religious test than I am citing here must be used. Symbols can be used to intimidate but that is no where need the intimidation one can do when forcing someone to repeat a "Pledge". Thus the above emerging "Rule" applies to "religious" symbols on Government Building NOT as to any requirement to repeat the Pledge of Allegiance.

Yes, in simple terms I expect this case to be dismissed, the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance is a much harder case to decide on First Amendment grounds.

[daleo]

19. That all seems pretty well reasoned.

A small point I might add is that the tablets on the seal don't look much like what one expects from other depictions, such as "The Ten Commandments" movie. They are long and narrow (the dimensions seem about 5 to 1), rather than book-like (dimensions would be about 1.6 to 1). At least that's what it looks like to me, eyeballing it. So, it could be argued that this image is not particularly evocative of the traditional Moses coming down from the mountain scene.

All that being said, they could just change the image and make it explicitly a law book. No big deal, in my opinion.

[TahitiNut]

15. An early script from a David Letterman 'Top 10'???

What the hell's wrong with "Blind Justice"?

[jdj]

17. that wasn't supposed to be an eye patch anyway.

that was for her to cover her boob with.

[deacon2]

18. Wait, was that the earth shifting on its axis?

Now I now these are the end times. What's next, Anton Scalia quoting Karl Marx from the SC dais?