< PREVIOUS ] [ 2000 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
State Sen. John Andrews, an Englewood Republican, has proposed that public schools in Colorado be required to post the Ten Commandments in all classrooms and entryways -- perhaps next to the metal detectors, so that students could read them as they stood in line.
Naturally, the proposed law inspired a barrage of
criticism, mostly on constitutional grounds, since the
First Amendment of the federal constitution provides that
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion.
Last week, Andrews revised his bill to allow, rather than require, school districts to post the commandments.
This would be mere symbolism, since no school district would provoke the expensive lawsuits that would result from posting the commandments. Why spend precious money on attorneys when it could be put toward something important, like hiring administrators to negotiate monopoly deals with soft-drink companies?
The temptation is strong to join the attack on Andrews,
but the fact is that I've known John Andrews ever since he
called me after I referred to him as a flake
in a
column years ago, and he's a likable fellow. He does have
some ideas that seem pretty strange, but then again, he
probably feels the same way about me.
So as someone who occasionally shares his interest in social improvement, I urge Andrews to amend his bill again -- this time, to make it stronger.
Specifically, S.B. 114 should expand the posting requirement. Don't limit it to public schools. The law should require Commandments on prominent display in every public area, and every workplace, in Colorado. Put them on billboards next to the highways at regular intervals. And don't stop at the Commandments. Add a denunciation of the Seven Deadly Sins -- Pride, Wrath, Envy, Lust, Gluttony, Avarice and Sloth -- to the list.
This may seem extreme, but it follows from the logic of posting Commandments in the schoolhouse. The idea is to inculcate moral values in schoolchildren, so that they don't shoot each other.
But we pay so much attention to school shootings precisely because they are so rare -- typically fewer than 100 a year in the United States, when more than 700 Americans died from workplace homicide in 1998.
So if our schoolchildren need to be indoctrinated that
Thou shalt not kill,
how much more does the working
adult population need this reminder?
And there would be other benefits. It's probably too
much to expect the police to observe thou shalt not
kill
after they've kicked in the wrong door on a
no-knock raid. But suppose Denver police officer Joseph
Bini, upon reporting to each shift, had passed a placard
that told him Thou shalt not bear false witness.
If that affected him the way that the Commandments are presumed to influence schoolchildren, then Bini might not face perjury charges. Ishmael Mena might still be alive, and Tom Sanchez could have enjoyed a few days in Hawaii before returning to his job as Denver police chief.
Further, think of how much money metro area taxpayers would save if they didn't have to support professional sports arenas, where athletes and coaches routinely fail to honor the Sabbath, be it the Muslim Friday, the Jewish Saturday or the Christian Sunday.
Adding the Seven Deadly Sins to the display is important because there are some matters that the Commandments don't quite cover.
Suppose, for instance, that the Arvada City Council chambers displayed a denunciation of Avarice, and that the council members took it to heart.
Would they then be using their powers of condemnation to expel a big carpet store so that they could install a Costco warehouse? Not because there's anything wrong with Carpet Exchange, but because Costco would bring in more sales tax money.
In other words, if you fail to use your property in such a way as to maximize sales-tax revenue, then the Arvada government will condemn it and sell it to somebody else -- along with $9 million in subsidies for that somebody else.
None of the Commandments seems to apply here, so that's why Colorado needs to add the Seven Deadly Sins to the list so as to discourage Avarice.
Further, think of Glendale without Lust, tourist zones without visitors coming to practice Sloth, body-building gyms without Pride, franchise restaurants without Gluttony, real-estate and automobile marketing without Envy, and you're thinking of a better Colorado for all of us.
So, while many people are criticizing John Andrews for wanting to post the Ten Commandments in public schools, it appears that the real problem, if we want a more decent society, is that Andrews is just too timid.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 2000 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >