The Proper State is Secular
THE PROPER STATE IS SECULAR BY DAVID ARTHUR WALTERS An elected chief justice of Alabama recently refused to obey a judicial order to remove a two and one-half ton granite shrine to the Decalogue that he had surreptitiously slipped into the courthouse rotunda around midnight one night. The reason he gave for disobeying the positive law of his peers was that true American law has its origin in his god, hence he declared that the federal judge and his colleagues on the state supreme court had violated god's law by placing themselves above god and above the law. After all, the First Table of the Law establishing Hebrew theocracy, as edited for the shrine, explicitly stated, "I am the Lord thy God, Thou shalt have no god before me," or the like. The Hebrew god has been revamped by Christians; therefore it was said that American law is Christian law. "I will never deny the God upon whom our laws and country depend," said the Alabama chief justice. At the time of this ...