Huckleberries Online

Court Lets City Protect 10 C’s

Posted by DFO

Feb. 25, 2009 1:26 p.m. • 19 comments

Item: Supreme Court lets Utah city refuse religious monument in park near 10 Commandments display/Reuters

More Info: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a Utah city can refuse to put a religious group’s monument in a public park near a similar Ten Commandments display. The justices unanimously sided with the city of Pleasant Grove, which had said a ruling for the religious group would mean public parks across the country would have to allow privately donated monuments that express different views from those already on display.

Question: Are you bothered by monuments displaying 10 Commandments in parks and other public areas, like the Kootenai County Courthouse lawn?

19 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Nick_Adams on February 25 at 1:46 p.m.
Nope. Kind of enjoy reading them now and again.
DFO on February 25 at 2:02 p.m.
Nick; do you have a favorite commandment?
scootermom on February 25 at 2:24 p.m.
Yes. If I want to read the Bible, I’ll do it at home.
Charlie on February 25 at 2:24 p.m.
No problem with the 10 commandments in a public setting. My favorites are “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” and “Honor thy father and mother.”
Nick_Adams on February 25 at 2:33 p.m.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s as*. You gotta see my neighbor. I need a lot of reminding.

Also, I think that the “false witness” one is taking a beating these days—thanks in no small part to teh internets, talk radio and cable news.
toadman on February 25 at 3:04 p.m.
I really don’t care. Being agnostic, is pretty liberating that way…
LukeB on February 25 at 3:11 p.m.
Wow, that is some convoluted reasoning to not see this as establishment.
Rosalind on February 25 at 3:27 p.m.
On one hand, yes I am bothered by it - because I support the separation of church and state. Even if I do believe in the 10 commandments, I don’t think they should be touted as the dominant belief. It’s kind of suffocating to those who aren’t part of the Christian Club.

On the other hand, politicians and government officials need a reminder to be moral. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re the ones paying attention to the commandment monuments, so it’s not really helping.
Escapee on February 25 at 8:29 p.m.
I’m thinking that if everyone followed ‘The Commandments’ all the time, it would be a much better world. So I’m not bothered when I see ‘I’ thru ‘X’ on a courthouse lawn or anywhere else.
florined on February 25 at 11:57 p.m.
Is there not a hypocritical irony in touting the “shall not kill” commandment in front of a courthouse that could very well be the locus for a commandment (sentence) to kill? Is it not clear that even the groups that supposedly base their cultural mores on these rules have come to interpret them differently?

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About this blog

D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.