In their quest for tolerance and inclusion, an atheist group demanded an Ohio middle school remove a plaque of the Ten Commandments that had hung in the school for nearly a century. And the school caved.
According to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the code of ethics articulated in the Ten Commandments “impermissibly turn any non-believing student into an outsider.”
“Schoolchildren already feel significant pressure to conform to their peers,” foundation representative Christopher Line wrote in a letter to the school. “They must not be subjected to similar pressure from their schools, especially on religious questions.”
To fight this unwanted compulsion, the FFRF applied its own kind of pressure to force the school district to change. I’d argue the FFRF’s premise and its subsequent actions contradict each other, but if there’s one thing we know about the aggressively irreligious, it is that they view the use of force in the service of anything unreligion as necessary, and even good.
Of course, a plaque of the Ten Commandments on a middle school wall is hardly any exercise of force, as the FFRF claims. But it is a symbol of our nation’s religious heritage and must therefore come down, even if the nation’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence is headed in exactly the opposite direction.
This is just one more skirmish in the ongoing battle between those who would strip the public square of all religious symbolism and those who believe the public square must serve as a forum for all expression, including religious expression.
This wasn’t a battle the New Philadelphia City School District wanted to fight. Perhaps they made the right call, considering the alternative to removing the plaque would have been endless harassment from the FFRF and drawn-out court battles. To his credit, Superintendent David Brand did say the school district would consider filing an amicus brief arguing against the plaque’s removal.
“As background, the plaque was a gift from the Class of 1926 to the District in 1927,” Brand said in a statement. “To the best of its knowledge, the District believes the plaque has been displayed in the District ever since. With over 90 years on display, the plaque is recognized as part of the tradition and history of New Philadelphia City Schools. Rather than engaging FFRF in an action where the community’s resources are at stake, the District will consider filing an amicus brief in a forthcoming case on the matter.”
This is a battle the school could have won, had it chosen to fight. The Supreme Court has long upheld religious expression in the public square. “The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion’s role in society,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the 2010 case Salazar v. Buono. “The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement [of religion] does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm.”
FFRF’s blatant intimidation made this seem like a fight not worth fighting. That is the real tragedy in all of this. America’s religious heritage matters. Yes, we live in a pluralist society, but that religious heritage was also integral to that pluralism, among all of our other philosophical ideas of what makes a society just. The founders believed this and fought for it, not because they wanted government to embrace religion, but because they wanted religion to embrace government. A just society must be sustained by a virtuous people, and stripping it of all moral reminders will only worsen the public sphere.
I hope Superintendent Brand fights back. If he doesn’t, the FFRF will send a clear message to everyone else that they and the gods of secularism can and will force you into submission. And if we allow them to do that, this will keep happening, and we will all be worse for it.
