If Republicans want to display the Ten Commandments, they ought to start obeying them

Congratulations, GOP, you have unlocked peak hypocrisy.

I’m going to start here, in Vermont of course, where even pointless vengeance is, well, quirky. State Rep. Mary Morrissey, who has served in the Green Mountain state’s legislature for 27 (she says 28) years, was caught on video pouring water into the bag of fellow house member Jim Carroll. Morrissey is a Republican; Carroll a Democrat. Both hail from Bennington, a close-knit community where they grew up attending the same Catholic Church. Morrissey had done the water bit for a while, until Carroll wised up and spent $23 on a spy camera.

Photo by Sean Foster on Unsplash

Stupidity ensued, according to the Boston Globe.

Carroll said Morrissey initially denied responsibility but later apologized to him privately.

“It looked like her face had just melted,” Carroll said. “She sat across from me, and it was like she was trying to make herself as tiny as she could, and she said, ‘I just want you to know how sorry I am.’”

“I just said, ‘Bull----,’” Carroll recalled. “I said, ‘The only reason you’re sorry is you got caught.’”

The newspaper speculated (with lots of anecdotal evidence) that the flap was about a bill the liberal body was looking to pass establishing a legal right for women to have abortions. The Catholic Church opposes abortion, but I believe they also oppose stupid acts of destruction, and, oh yeah, lying.

The Catholic Church also supports the Ten Commandments, which are universally agreed upon by every major Christian denomination, not to mention Jews, who place special significance on Moses, the writer of the Torah. These basic laws appear in Exodus chapter 20, and in case you failed to memorize them in Sunday school, or simply haven’t spent any time learning them past perhaps watching Mel Brooks’ “History of the World Part I” (Part II—ignore the horrible TV series—is teased as “Jews in Space,” which in the canon of Mel, is universally accepted to be “Spaceballs”—I digress), here they are.

1. I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven or on the each beneath or in the waters below.

3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

4. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

5. Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, or wife, or servant, or ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

These commandments have been part and parcel of American religious education since the days of the Puritans. In the early days of America, before we were a country, institutions of learning were run by religious organizations. Harvard College was voted into being in 1636 by the “Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.” But there was no such things as “separation of church and state” in those days, as the colonies were attached to England, which had an official Church (and still does).

When our Constitution was adopted, one of the founding principles of government was that government should stay out of the affairs of the church. It’s never been a good idea to mix those, as Henry VIII’s spouses could attest. Not to mention the victims of the Reign of Terror in France, when Maximilien Robespierre’s “Committee of Public Safety” overthrew church control with the guillotine.

In the many years since all schools were run by religious organizations, things in America changed, where today public schools educate 83% of children. In public schools, where largely Christian mores prevailed, things like the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12) and the Ten Commandments adorned many walls, right up until they didn’t.

We live in a pluralistic society, and we are governed by principles that try, imperfectly, to keep government’s nose out of religious education. But now, Republicans in Louisiana have decided to force educators to display the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom.

Now, I think this law will be quickly overturned by federal courts, and likely, the Supreme Court. Beyond that, I think it’s a stupid law.

If you want to teach kids the Ten Commandments, Republicans would do better to follow them, instead of tack them on classroom walls. They also might want to ensure kids get a real education in things that schools are also supposed to teach: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Louisiana in particular does a poor job, according to statistics published by the World Population Review website.

In fact, Louisiana ranks 49th in overall education among U.S. states. Mississippi officially ranks 50th for the category “student success,” where Louisiana is also 49th, but Mississippi has a high “student safety” rank bringing its overall ranking up to 39th, while Louisiana scores 49th or 48th in every single category. Even Arizona, which is 50th overall, has better rankings in “student success” and “student safety.”

You can make the strong argument that many things are wrong with Louisiana’s schools. The things that are wrong cannot be solved by tacking up a poster in a classroom.

According to the AP, the law also authorized, but does not provide funding for or require, “he display of other items in K-12 public schools, including: The Mayflower Compact…the Declaration of Independence; and the Northwest Ordinance.” I’m fine with the Declaration of Independence and even the Northwest Ordinance (though the significance of it seems dubious). If you want to hang those up, why not the Supreme Court ruling for Worcester v. Georgia, which President Andrew Jackson threw in the trash, dooming the Cherokees to permanent removal from their land. Or have them show this video on Fletcher v. Peck.

These parts of history don’t seem to follow the Golden Rule, or the 6th, 8th, 9th, and 10th Commandments, for that matter.

I happen to believe in the Ten Commandments, and the Golden Rule. They are good precepts to live by. They are not so good when you make stupid laws to pin them up in classrooms to make idiotic political points with uneducated people who vote emotionally with no thought.

But this is where the Republican Party is: pouring water in canvas bags, and pinning posters of religious laws they don’t have any intention of keeping, but expect kids to learn them.

Congratulations, GOP, you have unlocked peak hypocrisy.

PRESENTED WITHOUT COMMENT: Republicans in the House of Representatives are debating a defense funding bill that includes adding women to Selective Service (draft) rolls (from NYT). Republicans are on both sides of the fence, making a Face v. Heel argument as kayfabe theater.

Even Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has previously expressed support for an expanded role for womenin the military, including adding the same draft registration requirement that men face.

And:

Other right-wing Republicans were quick to link the proposed addition of women to draft registration to what they argue is a trend of progressiveness run amok in the United States military. Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, called it another “woke” decision being imposed on the nation’s armed forces.

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