For the Sake of Our Children, Display the Ten Commandments Again
For the Sake of Our Children, Display the Ten Commandments Again
By Dr. Ed Holliday
Once again on American soil, a horrific tragedy unfolded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen students and teachers were murdered without mercy on Valentine’s Day 2018. Americans everywhere are asking what can be done. As media outlets tout gun control and others contemplate on how to make schools hardened targets, desperate citizens are saying that we must do everything possible to protect our children. I agree. I believe now is the time to put the Ten Commandments back into our schools and courthouses. Now is the time to say that too many children have perished, and we will do everything possible to protect them including access to the de facto American moral code called the Ten Commandments.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions have deprived our children access to the moral code that has guided our nation’s citizens since independence. For over two hundred years the Ten Commandments were accepted in American schools and courthouses, but in the past 30–40 years, black-robed judges blocked them from being present in public places. All Americans need to know that you should not lie, you should not steal, and you should not murder. The U.S. Supreme Court bears some responsibility for the rash of school shootings for their prohibition of the code that teaches respect for life and healthy relationships between citizens. Our elected officials should pass a bill and the president sign into law, protection for the placement of the Ten Commandments in our schools and courthouses immediately.
Why post the Ten Commandments in our classrooms and schools? Because we obviously have youth who place no value on human life and that is precisely what the Decalogue teaches. How many of our youth even know the difference between right and wrong? Television shows, movies, and video games do not teach the kind of morality necessary to differentiate between right and wrong. A very important question that begs an answer is: has prohibiting the display of moral law contributed to acts of violence and lawlessness? Our courts have concealed the basis of all morality from our young people for far too long and we are now reaping the bitter harvest.
We know the courts have dictated what can be said presently in our public schools and our public places. But with the tragedy in Parkland, Florida, and the increasing string of massacres the peoples’ representatives need to speak loudly and boldly for the citizens. We must recognize in a common sense way that past American presidents, members of Congress, judges, and American citizens have effectively weaved the 10 Commandments into our lives through laws, speeches, readings, and the ways in which they have lived their lives. After these mass school shootings, the Supreme Court should immediately stop concealing what helps make society richer in relationships, freer in movement, and safer for all!
President Harry Truman explained how his desire to live by the Ten Commandments guided him through life. This was a president who changed history when he ended World War II and then later recognized the newly formed state of Israel against the advice of most advisors both here in America and around the world. Historian and author William Federer wrote, “Referring to the Ten Commandments, President Harry S. Truman addressed the Attorney General’s Conference, February 1950: ‘The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount…I don’t think we emphasize that enough these days…If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except for the State.”’
Federer also wrote about Truman’s predecessor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who stated on Dec. 24, 1942: “We as a Nation and as individuals will please God best by showing regard for the laws of God. There is no better way of fostering good will toward man than by first fostering good will toward God. If we love Him we will keep His commandments.” We could list thousands of references about the Ten Commandments and how they have affected our leaders and our laws. How will all of our American children ever understand what the Ten Commandments are and how they feature in our history if they are not allowed to even see them!
The 10 Commandments are the foundation of our American laws. Are our children so fragile that the mention of the word “God” may scar them for life? Violence has already scarred too many of our school children. Too many innocent children have died because judges are afraid America’s time-tested moral code might harm these youth. But just the opposite is true-too many children and adults have been harmed because what has blessed and benefitted our society in the past has been concealed from the later generations.
Bipartisan sponsored legislation should be crafted, voted on and signed into law to protect the placement of the Ten Commandments in our schools. The U.S. Supreme Court needs to answer for what has happened to the murdered children of America. But if the highest court in the land dares to strike such legislation down, we can go the route of a constitutional amendment. Now is the time to break through the court imposed prohibition of the Ten Commandments and protect their public posting, for the sake of our children and our future!