It seems that the U.S. House of Representatives has taken action to combat school violence. One of their weapons is: the Ten Commandments. Surprise, surprise.

To begin with, let's get our facts straight. The House has not required schools to post the Commandments. The law basically said that the States have the right to require that the Ten Commandments be posted on school walls. This means, essentially, that it won't be Teddy Kennedy and Jesse Helms dealing with matters of religion, it'll be Richard Morgan and Ellie Kinnaird. Don't you feel much better now? Whatever your political persuasion, I'll bet one of those names sent a chill down your spine.

So what's the big deal? What's wrong with the Ten Commandments? Absolutely nothing. The problem is with the government, whether State or Federal, putting its nose where it doesn't belong.

Six of the Commandments deal with relations between man and his fellow man: don't kill. Don't steal. Honor your parents. Don't bear false witness. Don't commit adultery. In fact don't even covet your neighbor's wife, or anything else of his for that matter, including the riding lawnmower. So far, so good, although I'd love to be a fly on the wall when the first-graders ask the teacher to explain what "adultery" is. Since this would probably constitute sex education, the law should probably mandate a few seconds of embarrassed throat-clearing and a change of subject.

Then, however, you have the other four: no other gods but God. No graven images. Honor the Sabbath day. Don't take the name of the Lord in vain. These are the ones that deal with man's relationship with the Almighty. And these are the ones people can't agree on, therefore the ones the guvmint has no business putting its mitts on.

Let's just have a look at some of these:

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Well, this should sit well with the country's 910,000 Hindus. Or America's 5.1 million Muslims, who have a similar Commandment, a fact which has caused no end of ruckus between Christian, Jew and Muslim.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image": The thought behind the House's action seems to be that posting the words of the Commandments on the wall of the schoolhouse will somehow stop the angry and disaffected yoots of America from taking Daddy's deer rifle and blowing away the Prom Committee. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The Ten Commandments are a fine guide for living. They are not a magic spell. Saying them out loud or reading them on the wall is not going to make all the bad people go away. Frankly, this worshipful obsession with posting the actual Ten Commandments up on the wall turns the words themselves into a talisman, a substitute for the ideas they express. In other words, the Ten Commandments are perilously close to becoming...a graven image. Oh, the irony.

It's also ironic that some of the same conservatives who are pushing the Commandments also would like to see the return of the Pledge of Allegiance to the classroom. These people forget that the Jehovah's Witnesses, a Christian denomination, regard the Pledge of Allegiance to be a violation of the Second Commandment's ban on worship of images. This is why the Supreme Court struck down a law requiring the Pledge, a decision roundly criticized by conservatives. You can't help but wonder about people who want to post the Commandments on the wall of a school, then ask some students to violate one of them.

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy". Okay, which one? Jews celebrate the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Most Protestants celebrate it for an hour or so on Sunday, before football. I say most Protestants, because the Seventh Day Adventists call Saturday their Sabbath. So, do YOU want to be a teacher when little Johnny asks, "what's a Sabbath"? Or, here's a crazy idea: would you rather have the right to explain that to your own child?

See, this is the point of the First Amendment: religion is just too important to be left to the government. You want your kids to have the 10 Commandments in their lives? Write them on the front of their notebook. You want them to know the power of prayer? Teach them yourself. Believe me, in an increasingly heterogeneous society, you do NOT want to open the door for government-paid teachers to get into the God business. Or someday we may see this scene: "Children, this is your new teacher, Mr. Singh. He just moved here from Pakistan, and will now lead you in prayer. Five times a day. Everybody face Mecca, now!" Hey, you said you wanted God in the schools.

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©1999 Jerry D. Rhoades, Jr.