Students and community leaders in rural southwestern Virginia have staked out their own Alamo trying to preserve something they hold dear. On Monday morning, dozens of supporters protested the removal of the Ten Commandments from Giles County schools where they have been displayed the past 12 years.
Giles began posting the Ten Commandments, along with the U.S. Constitution, after one of America’s deadliest school shootings occurred at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999, a tragedy that ended with the death of 14 students and one teacher. After all, those moral tenets include the one that says, “Thou shalt not kill.”
The Ten Commandments remained on display in county schools until an anonymous complaint in December brought the threat of legal action against this small county of 16,000 residents nestled in the Alleghany Mountains 70 miles west of Roanoke. Some may better recognize Giles County as home of the Mountain Lake Hotel that was used as the location of the 1987 movie, “Dirty Dancing,” starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.
Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation contacted the school superintendent who had the Commandments removed but a packed school board meeting in January saw the school board unanimously vote to return them to the schools. However, further threat of legal action from FFRF and the ACLU, and the fear of a huge legal battle at the expense of taxpayer money, caused the superintendent to order the removal of the Commandments, leading to Monday’s protest from students and community leaders.
In these times when a student killed 32 people at nearby Virginia Tech University just four years ago, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks when almost 3,000 innocent people were killed, and with rampant drug and gang activity, some wonder why anyone would object to ten principles that instruct on how to lead an honorable life.
The FFRF and ACLU claim an unconstitutional government endorsement of Christianity. It is a battle that has been lost in other parts of the country, and it is a battle that saw Chief Justice Roy Moore removed from the Alabama State Supreme Court for his refusal to remove the Commandments from the State Supreme Court building.
