Sunday, 27 February 2000
© 2000 The New York Times
CHICAGO - Trying to make the Ten Commandments part of publicschool life in ways that could survive constitutional challenges,Indiana has passed a bill that permits schools to post the religiousedicts as a historical document.
A number of other states are pondering similar measures.
Many school boards around the nation, spurred largely by horrorover several highly publicized school shootings, have been consideringposting the Commandments as a way to encourage moral behavioramong students.
The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the posting of the Commandmentsin public schools two decades ago. But lawmakers in many statesbelieve they can survive legal challenges if the Commandmentsare posted in a display with other historical documents, suchas the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence.
Measures to permit the posting of the Ten Commandments in sucha context are pending in Illinois, South Dakota, Colorado, Florida,Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri and Oklahoma. A Georgia measurewould cut off money to a school that did not post the Ten Commandments.
``When school shootings become part of dinner table conversation,people stop and say, `Whoa!' '' said Janet Parshall, a spokeswomanfor the Family Research Council. The council is a conservativegroup that has distributed about 750,000 copies of the Ten Commandmentson book covers for students to use.
Acknowledging that there is no hard evidence that exposure tothe Ten Commandments would inspire students to be good people,she said, ``It certainly can't hurt.''
Civil libertarians have watched the moves with wariness, sayingthe key question is whether schools are trying to impose a certainreligious doctrine in a public setting.
``If the message that is being received by students is religious,then the Constitution has been violated,'' said Steven Shapiro,a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union.
The House of Representatives last year passed the Ten CommandmentsDefense
Bill, asserting that public schools and courthouses havea right
to post the Commandments.
(Arizona Republicans Jim Kolbe, Matt Salmon, J.D. Hayworth, JohnShadegg
and Bob Stump all voted for the bill. Democrat Ed Pastorvoted
no.)
The measure has not come to a vote in the Senate.
The ACLU in Kentucky recently filed a lawsuit against the HarlanCounty school district for posting the Commandments, and alsosued Pulaski and McCreary counties for posting them in courthouses.
David Musselman, Harlan County superintendent of schools, defendedthe posting of the Commandments, saying politicians had been passinglaws for thousands of years, ``and nobody has really improvedon the Ten Commandments.''
He said many schools had been posting the Commandments for
years,with little notice.
``We've got a lot of schools around here that have had the TenCommandments
up for 20 or 25 years,'' he said, ``and nobody botheredabout it.''
Some school districts have found ways to promote the meaning ofthe Ten Commandments without defying the courts.
Schools in Scottsburg, Ind., have posted what they call commonprecepts, many of which sound a lot like the tablets deliveredto Moses. They excised references to God in the precepts afterthe ACLU in Indiana threatened a lawsuit. Instead, each preceptis marked with a photograph of a penny, stamped with the message``In God We Trust.''
Rob Hooker, the superintendent of schools in Scottsburg, saidthe code was posted ``to remind our students how a virtuous andcivil school community ought to behave.''
Indiana law requires the public schools to teach ``morals instruction,''including honesty, morality, courtesy, obedience to the law andrespect for the American flag. The state also requires schoolsto teach students to save sex for marriage and to avoid alcoholand drugs.
``There's no common code anymore,'' Hooker said. ``You look
atwhat's on TV, and it's all about lying and stealing and cheating.What
do kids have to look to?''
But Shapiro said schools should be careful not to ``attempt toindoctrinate
the religious ideas that the Ten Commandments embody.''
In the 20 years since the Supreme Court banned the posting ofthe Ten Commandments in public schools, he said, student bodieshave become more diverse. ``We have increasing numbers of studentsfor whom this is not a sacred text,'' he said.
Different religions have somewhat different versions of the
TenCommandments. These are the general ideas:
* Do not worship other gods or practice idolatry.
* Do not use God's name in vain.
* Observe the Sabbath and keep it holy.
* Honor your parents.
* Do not kill, commit adultery, steal or covet.
* Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.