Thou shalt not … something … something

June 16, 2006 D. H. McKee

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This is pretty classy.

Crooks and Liars has this video of the Colbert Report. Stephen Colbert’s guest was Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, a republican who wants to introduce legislation to have the 10 Commandments displayed in public buildings.
Except he can’t think of any places where it might be more appropriate to display them (i.e. in a church).
And he can’t name them all. Couldn’t name more than 2 or 3. Maybe it *is* a good idea to hang them up somewhere so that right-wingers can remember them.
Christ. Here they are, in no particular order (and from memory, thank you very much):

Honor thy mother and father (unless they mean to do you harm, I suppose)
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, his ox, ass, or his slaves, etc. (heh, ass)
Thou shalt not steal (nothing that might be missed anyway)
Thou shalt not kill (I assume it means humans)
Thou shalt have no other gods before me (not a moral commandment, but something entirely X-tian)
Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy (another X-tian-centric commandment)
Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain (another X-tian-centric commandment)
Thou shalt not commit adultery (I could never figure out if this was OK if you weren’t married but the other person was)
Thou shalt not make graven images (another X-tian-centric commandment)
err …

Ok, I missed one. Forgot the “Bear False Witness” commandment, as in “don’t bear false witness” or more plainly, don’t lie. Probably the most commonly broken commandment (though the adultery and stealing ones are likely pretty close behind). Still, 9 out of 10 isn’t too bad, especially for a person who lives their life according to a set of moral, secular, and governmental codes, not religious codes. Sheesh. The most moral humanist around would still be violating 4 of the commandments. Why would they want to stick these in a public place? Do they want to promote X-tianity over other religions? Do they want to promote religious lifestyle over a secular one? Are they trying to blur the line of separation between church and state?
Why, yes, yes, and yes. Thanks for asking.
The guys over at religioustolerance.org have a great set of discussions on the 10 commandments, including this little gem:
“Only 68 of 200 Anglican priests polled could name all Ten Commandments, but half said they believed in space aliens.”

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