The Ten Commandments: A Firm Foundation

A judge is hearing arguments over the placement of a Ten Commandments monument in Fargo, North Dakota.

"My clients should not have to avert their eyes" when walking past the monument, said Tiffany Johnson, a third-year University of North Dakota law student who represents five Fargo men seeking to remove the monument.

This played paddywhack on my funny-bone. "Avert their eyes?" Please. Which one of these commandments offends you, oh masters of melodrama?

Here's a difinitive list, from Exodus 20: 2-17:

1. "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the Earth beneath, or that is in the water under the Earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My Commandments.

3. Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His Name in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the LORD made heaven and Earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath Day, and hallowed it.

5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8. Thou shalt not steal.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's.

Man, that is some obnoxious stuff--especially number 1 & 6-8. How can one be a murderous, lecherous, thieving divinity, with such restrictions around!

I submit that folks who feel the need to hide their eyes are the ones with the problem, not those who wish to see the Commandments--the basis for American law--honored.