At the end of June, the Supreme Court ruled on two Ten Commandments cases — McCreary and Van Orden. In McCreary, the court upheld the ruling that a Kentucky display of the Ten Commandments in a court house was unconstitutional in a 5-4 vote. In Van Orden, the justices upheld the ruling that a Texas monument depicting the Ten Commandments outside of the State Capitol complied with consitutional law in a 5-4 vote. The decisions were exceedingly narrow and did not generate the widely applicable guidelines that many had hoped (and some had feared) would be created. In both decisions, all of the justices fell on the same side of the religious divide — with the exception of Justice Breyer, who split his votes and thus decided the cases. You can check out our previous Rants on these cases, or you can read the official Cliffs Notes for each case (for McCreary or for Van Orden) to get up to speed.

So what does all of this mean, both to us and in general?

To begin with, it is important to note that we are not offended by the Ten Commandments, or by any other religious display. In point of fact, not much offends us, and even if it did, that means nothing. As we've pointed out so many times, there is no guaranteed right to "not be offended," and trying to remove everything that is in any way offensive to anyone is just an exercise in Political Correctness gone mad (as if Political Correctness wasn't mad enough already). See our previous Rant on the push to change the name of the New Jersey Devils hockey team for some more of our thoughts on PC silliness. But regardless, the bottom line is that this issue isn't about "being offended" at all.

Instead, it is about the government endorsement of religion; both in general, and in this case (as well as most others) about the government endorsement of the Christian (or Judeo-Christian, if you must) religion.

First, we'll look at how the McCreary opinions spell out the overarching views of each Justice on the separation of church and state. Then we'll examine in detail Justice Breyer's decisive opinion in Van Orden to understand why he split his votes. After that, we'll take a look at the purpose prong and what these cases mean for the storied Lemon test. Finally, we'll wrap up the post by using some interactive animations to show the difference between a constitutionally acceptable display that contains the Ten Commandments and one that, to us, is blatantly unacceptable. Feel free to skip to the animations first, if you're into that kind of thing.

McCreary: The Overarching Views of the Justices

As noted above, Justice Breyer was the swing vote between the two cases, so we'll pay particular attention to his views as we work our way through the opinions. Because there were only two main opinions in the McCreary case (along with a shorty by O'Connor), it provides a good high level view of the positions that each of the justices takes on the separation of church and state in general. To us — and to Justices Souter, Kennedy and Ginsberg — the main point, taken from the Majority Opinion on McCreary, is this:

The touchstone for our analysis is the principle that the First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion. When the government acts with the ostensible and predominant purpose of advancing religion, it violates that central Establishment Clause value of official religious neutrality, there being no neutrality when the government's ostensible object is to take sides. Manifesting a purpose to favor one faith over another, or adherence to religion generally, clashes with the "understanding, reached ... after decades of religious war, that liberty and social stability demand a religious tolerance that respects the religious views of all citizens ..." By showing a purpose to favor religion, the government "sends the ... message to ... nonadherents 'that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members....'"

Note that by concurring with the Majority Opinion, Justice Breyer at least tacitly agrees with the above statement. In her Concurring Opinion on McCreary, Justice O'Connor adds (correctly in our opinion):

It is true that many Americans find the Commandments in accord with their personal beliefs. But we do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment. ("The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts"). Nor can we accept the theory that Americans who do not accept the Commandments' validity are outside the First Amendment's protections. There is no list of approved and disapproved beliefs appended to the First Amendment, and the Amendment's broad terms ("free exercise," "establishment," "religion") do not admit of such a cramped reading.

In his Van Orden Concurring Opinion, Justice Breyer states that he agrees with the principles O'Connor outlines above.

But Justices Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas have a vastly different view, as evidenced by their Dissenting Opinion in McCreary:

Besides appealing to the demonstrably false principle that the government cannot favor religion over irreligion, today's opinion suggests that the posting of the Ten Commandments violates the principle that the government cannot favor one religion over another. That is indeed a valid principle where public aid or assistance to religion is concerned, or where the free exercise of religion is at issue, but it necessarily applies in a more limited sense to public acknowledgment of the Creator. If religion in the public forum had to be entirely nondenominational, there could be no religion in the public forum at all. One cannot say the word "God," or "the Almighty," one cannot offer public supplication or thanksgiving, without contradicting the beliefs of some people that there are many gods, or that God or the gods pay no attention to human affairs. With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.

In short, these justices are outright declaring that those who don't practice an Abrahamic religion are lesser citizens than those who do. By extension, they also believe that the government is free to endorse religion at the expense of those who are not religious. Based upon this point of view, it is pretty obvious why these justices voted in favor of allowing both Ten Commandments displays. And people wonder why we're so concerned about the possibility of a Christian theocracy in America?

In keeping with our focus on Justice Breyer's point of view, we'll note that Breyer also states in his Van Orden Concurring Opinion that he disagrees with the above dissent in McCreary.

In addition to the above general statements about the Establishment Clause, other factors in the McCreary decision seemed to regard the clearly religious motivations in the minds of the county officials who errected the display, and the fact that the posted text of the Ten Commandments serves a religious purpose, not a secular one. The dissenting Justices agreed in part with this analysis, but not with the conclusion that this was unconstitutional. Of course, this simply recalls what is (to us) their fundamentally flawed interpretation of the Bill of Rights, as laid out above.

None of these opinions are really surprising, as they represent the general opinions that each of these justices has about the separation of church and state. However, our focus on Breyer and his statements on each of these opinions has made it pretty clear, in a broad sense, which of these two widely different views he embraces. Given his high level concurrence with the other separationists, why did his vote change on Van Orden?

Van Orden: Breyer's Opinion

It seems clear to us that the high level views that the justices laid out for McCreary would be general enough to apply to Van Orden. (Even Breyer must not have changed his overarching views between cases, so for him it must have come down to some other less obvious details.) As such, it's clear to us why all of the other justices voted as they did on Van Orden (they spelled it out already). The real question surrounds Justice Breyer. So, although the Van Orden decision carried with it many more actual opinions, we specifically want to understand why Breyer was the only Justice who found these cases disparate enough to warrant his apparently conflicting opinions.

In upholding the importance of the goals of the separation of church and state, Justice Breyer says the following in his concurrence on Van Orden:

The Court has made clear...that the realization of these goals means that government must "neither engage in nor compel religious practices," that it must "effect no favoritism among sects or between religion and nonreligion," and that it must "work deterrence of no religious belief." The government must avoid excessive interference with, or promotion of, religion.

Clearly, Breyer disagrees with the McCreary dissent above. But he then goes on to say:

But the Establishment Clause does not compel the government to purge from the public sphere all that in any way partakes of the religious. Such absolutism is not only inconsistent with our national traditions, but would also tend to promote the kind of social conflict the Establishment Clause seeks to avoid.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely what we're always talking about when we say that the little things matter. When the state and its citizens choose to overlook the widespread use of Christian symbolism throughout our country, it becomes easier for the religious believers to reach for (and achieve) larger victories. There are countless examples of this insidiously state-sanctioned religion, including opening prayers at legislative meetings, references to "God" in political speeches (you know the Europeans shake their heads in disbelief, right?), and the motto "In God We Trust" on our currency. Breyer cites these practices, among others, as reasons why the Van Orden display was acceptable to him.

Breyer then lays out the rationale that he applied in examining the case:

The case before us is a borderline case. It concerns a large granite monument bearing the text of the Ten Commandments located on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol. On the one hand, the Commandments' text undeniably has a religious message, invoking, indeed emphasizing, the Diety [sic]. On the other hand, focusing on the text of the Commandments alone cannot conclusively resolve this case. Rather, to determine the message that the text here conveys, we must examine how the text is used. And that inquiry requires us to consider the context of the display.

In certain contexts, a display of the tablets of the Ten Commandments can convey not simply a religious message but also a secular moral message (about proper standards of social conduct). And in certain contexts, a display of the tablets can also convey a historical message (about a historic relation between those standards and the law) — a fact that helps to explain the display of those tablets in dozens of courthouses throughout the Nation, including the Supreme Court of the United States.

We agree. If the Van Orden monument had contained the text of the commandments only incidentally, as part of a larger carving, we might look more favorably upon it. The display that contains the commandments in the Supreme Court which Breyer refers to is a good example of an acceptable display (more on that below). The logic is similar to trademark laws that allow you to publish an image (such as a photograph) that contains within it trademarked material (like a billboard in the background advertising Coca-Cola), provided that the trademarked material is incidental to the significance of the image. However, that's not the case here. In point of fact, the Van Orden display is, in its entirety, the text of the Ten Commandments, clearly written to be read. So, as far as we're concerned, the context only serves to damn the display further.

Breyer goes on to conclude that in the instance of the Texas monument, the display serves both a religious and a secular purpose:

The circumstances surrounding the display's placement on the capitol grounds and its physical setting suggest that the State itself intended the latter, nonreligious aspects of the tablets' message to predominate.

We really don't follow this line of reasoning. If we are reading this correctly, Breyer seems to be saying that by placing the monument in a venue that is not religious, the government is making it more acceptable. What is that all about? Hell, if the monument was placed in a church, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The whole point is that it was placed in a location that was supposed to be non-religious. The placement is the problem, not a point in favor of the display being acceptable!

From here, Breyer discusses the origin of the monument:

The group that donated the monument, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a private civic (and primarily secular) organization, while interested in the religious aspect of the Ten Commandments, sought to highlight the Commandments' role in shaping civic morality as part of that organization's efforts to combat juvenile delinquency. The Eagles' consultation with a committee composed of members of several faiths in order to find a nonsectarian text underscores the group's ethics-based motives. The tablets, as displayed on the monument, prominently acknowledge that the Eagles donated the display, a factor which, though not sufficient, thereby further distances the State itself from the religious aspect of the Commandments' message.

So if a some zealots who happen to belong to the local chapter of a "primarily secular" organization donate a religious monument to be erected on state grounds, that makes it somehow less religious? Nope, we don't buy this, either. If some neo-Nazis who happen to belong to a primarily Democratic organization donate a "Kill All Jews" monument to be erected on state grounds, does that make it less anti-Semitic? Not in our view. In our view, we judge the monument by its message first: in our example, the message is clearly one of violent bigotry, just as much as in Van Orden, the message is clearly one of religious ideology.

And now, Breyer tackles the setting:

The monument sits in a large park containing 17 monuments and 21 historical markers, all designed to illustrate the "ideals" of those who settled in Texas and of those who have lived there since that time.

Well, if this display was actually in a museum with a bunch of other monuments, maybe that would mean something. As it is, though, these seventeen monuments are spread over twenty-two acres. We tend to agree with Justice Souter who, joined by Justices Stevens and Ginsburg in his dissent, states:

But 17 monuments with no common appearance, history, or esthetic role scattered over 22 acres is not a museum, and anyone strolling around the lawn would surely take each memorial on its own terms without any dawning sense that some purpose held the miscellany together more coherently than fortuity and the edge of the grass. One monument expresses admiration for pioneer women. One pays respect to the fighters of World War II. And one quotes the God of Abraham whose command is the sanction for moral law. The themes are individual grit, patriotic courage, and God as the source of Jewish and Christian morality; there is no common denominator.

Nicely put. Back to Breyer's opinion on the setting:

The setting does not readily lend itself to meditation or any other religious activity. But it does provide a context of history and moral ideals.

Right! It's a government building! Of course it doesn't lend itself to meditation or religious activity! That's the whole point! That's why religious monuments are an inappropriate addition to the site.

More from Breyer:

It (together with the display's inscription about its origin) communicates to visitors that the State sought to reflect moral principles, illustrating a relation between ethics and law that the State's citizens, historically speaking, have endorsed. That is to say, the context suggests that the State intended the display's moral message — an illustrative message reflecting the historical "ideals" of Texans — to predominate.

Bullshit. Sure, there are several commandments — not killing, not stealing, not lying about others, being nice to your parents — that are representative of the ethics of most people, and two commandments (don't kill and don't steal) that are actually reflected in secular legislation; but what about the blatantly religious parts? The first four commandments are not in any way universally accepted morals — they are religious doctrine, plain and simple — and several others have multiple interpretations, are extremely subjective, and are not universally agreed upon.

Breyer then touches on an argument concerning the length of time that the monument has been in place:

As far as I can tell, 40 years passed in which the presence of this monument, legally speaking, went unchallenged (until the single legal objection raised by petitioner). And I am not aware of any evidence suggesting that this was due to a climate of intimidation. Hence, those 40 years suggest more strongly than can any set of formulaic tests that few individuals, whatever their system of beliefs, are likely to have understood the monument as amounting, in any significantly detrimental way, to a government effort to favor a particular religious sect, primarily to promote religion over nonreligion, to "engage in" any "religious practic[e]," to "compel" any "religious practic[e]," or to "work deterrence" of any "religious belief." Those 40 years suggest that the public visiting the capitol grounds has considered the religious aspect of the tablets' message as part of what is a broader moral and historical message reflective of a cultural heritage.

We absolutely disagree. Excuse us, but what the hell does the length of time the display has been around matter? There are plenty of possible reasons why nobody filed a lawsuit for those forty years. Perhaps the expense of such a lawsuit stopped them, or the stigma of "attacking God." Or maybe, just maybe, the surrounding area was mostly full of bible thumpers (you think?). Do any of these possibilities make that forty year span relevant? We don't think so, and Justice Souter agrees in his dissent:

...I do not understand any of these to be the State's argument, which ... seems to be that 40 years without a challenge shows that as a factual matter the religious expression is too tepid to provoke a serious reaction and constitute a violation. Perhaps, but the writer of Exodus chapter 20 was not lukewarm, and other explanations may do better in accounting for the late resort to the courts. Suing a State over religion puts nothing in a plaintiff's pocket and can take a great deal out, and even with volunteer litigators to supply time and energy, the risk of social ostracism can be powerfully deterrent. I doubt that a slow walk to the courthouse, even one that took 40 years, is much evidentiary help in applying the Establishment Clause.

Does this long-standing peace indicate that everyone understood the display to be secular? Hell, no. It could certainly mean that the majority population of Christians were happy to maintain an endorsement of their religious beliefs.

That entire argument just maps back to "being offended," which is simply irrelevant, as we've stated. What this would mean is that dense populations of Christians can form and maintain governments in which the Christian faith is endorsed simply because other members of that community of Christians likely "won't mind." That's ludicrous. It is legislation by grudging acceptance. It would be the same as saying that segregation should be allowed in places where it "isn't divisive." If that was the case, there would no doubt be communities throughout the United States in which segregation was still going strong. Applying this absurd logic to the Ten Commandments is a big mistake, and will only lead to more overall divisiveness throughout this already divided country.

More from Breyer:

The display is not on the grounds of a public school, where, given the impressionability of the young, government must exercise particular care in separating church and state.

Yeah, kids are the only people who matter. And also, there's clearly no chance that a child would ever visit the capitol building, and if that happened, there's no way that child would get the impression that such a display endorsed religion. Right?

Oh, please. What a load of crap.

More from Breyer's opinion, this time applying the length of time rule above to McCreary:

This case also differs from McCreary County, where the short (and stormy) history of the courthouse Commandments' displays demonstrates the substantially religious objectives of those who mounted them, and the effect of this readily apparent objective upon those who view them. That history there indicates a governmental effort substantially to promote religion, not simply an effort primarily to reflect, historically, the secular impact of a religiously inspired document. And, in today's world, in a Nation of so many different religious and comparable nonreligious fundamental beliefs, a more contemporary state effort to focus attention upon a religious text is certainly likely to prove divisive in a way that this longstanding, pre-existing monument has not.

So, if we are reading this correctly, any new displays in the same mold as the Texas monument would likely be deemed unacceptable, since there would likely be a much more immediate outcry? Well, that sounds like a good reason for separationists to speak up more often and more loudly. However, we disagree with this "grandfathering" approach. What the majority of people condoned forty years ago should not dictate what the rest of us have to live with today. As in our argument above, if this rationale was applied more broadly, we'd similarly still have segregation in some places.

According to the above reasons, Breyer holds that the Texas display passes Constitutional muster. What about the overtly religious text of the display? Breyer continues:

At the same time, to reach a contrary conclusion here, based primarily upon on the religious nature of the tablets' text would, I fear, lead the law to exhibit a hostility toward religion that has no place in our Establishment Clause traditions. Such a holding might well encourage disputes concerning the removal of longstanding depictions of the Ten Commandments from public buildings across the Nation. And it could thereby create the very kind of religiously based divisiveness that the Establishment Clause seeks to avoid.

So the display is clearly religious, but once again, if the separationists had been more vocal about their wishes, we'd have the "necessary divisiveness" to declare the Van Orden monument unacceptable. This makes very little sense to us.

Rather, we agree with Justice Souter's dissent on Van Orden, in which — joined by Justices Stevens and Ginsburg — he sums up the message of the display quite clearly:

Thus, a pedestrian happening upon the monument at issue here needs no training in religious doctrine to realize that the statement of the Commandments, quoting God himself, proclaims that the will of the divine being is the source of obligation to obey the rules, including the facially secular ones. In this case, moreover, the text is presented to give particular prominence to the Commandments' first sectarian reference, "I am the Lord thy God." That proclamation is centered on the stone and written in slightly larger letters than the subsequent recitation. To ensure that the religious nature of the monument is clear to even the most casual passerby, the word "Lord" appears in all capital letters (as does the word "am"), so that the most eye-catching segment of the quotation is the declaration "I AM the LORD thy God." What follows, of course, are the rules against other gods, graven images, vain swearing, and Sabbath breaking. And the full text of the fifth Commandment puts forward filial respect as a condition of long life in the land "which the Lord they [sic]God giveth thee." These "[w]ords ... make [the] ... religious meaning unmistakably clear."

To drive the religious point home, and identify the message as religious to any viewer who failed to read the text, the engraved quotation is framed by religious symbols: two tablets with what appears to be ancient script on them, two Stars of David, and the superimposed Greek letters Chi and Rho as the familiar monogram of Christ. Nothing on the monument, in fact, detracts from its religious nature

If this isn't a religious display, we don't know what is. Souter also gives some examples of displays that would be more likely to be deemed acceptable — check out the opinion for more details.

Since the message isn't what matters to Justice Breyer, we wonder what other texts he would find acceptable on the Texas display. What about adding something like this below the commandments:

"Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." Acts 26:28. Almost is not good enough. Almost will send you to hell. Call upon Jesus to save your soul.

That's the text on a leaflet that one of our members received under his door years ago (and which he keeps on the fridge for a laugh). This message is no more religious than the Ten Commandments, and like the Ten Commandments, it references a bible passage. Of course, this message tells people to call upon Jesus or go to hell. Is that very different from the Ten Commandments and what they state? If the message doesn't matter, then just about anything could be deemed as acceptable, and this is the failing of Breyer's opinion.

To us, the supposed differences that made Van Orden acceptable where McCreary was struck down are not at all substantive.

The Purpose Prong: Pros and Cons

Over on Dispatches from the Culture Wars, Ed Brayton makes another valid point: the rulings were actually good news for people fighting against the creeping stupidity that is creationism. As Ed points out, some observers feared that the "purpose prong" of the Lemon test, which has long guided court decisions around the Establishment Clause, might be swept under the carpet as a result of these rulings. Such a move would have removed one of the most obvious arguments against adopting creationist dogma in state-funded academic curriculae — that the purpose of creationism is religious in nature. Without an intact purpose prong, the tell-tale shouting about the "Glory of God" and "Jesus, the Prince of Ethics" wouldn't pose a problem for the creationists in a court of law.

However, purpose was mentioned very prominently in these Ten Commandments cases. One of the most damning factors in McCreary was the blatant religious motivation that was showcased by the officials behind the display of the commandments. Here we have a recent case in which the purpose prong has been soundly upheld as an important test in Establishment Clause cases. So we agree with Ed's assessment that this is a boon for creationist fighters.

We like the fact that obvious intent to promote religion can stop a religious display in its tracks, but we don't like that the purpose test continues to leave a huge loophole for fanatics to wriggle through. If it comes down to provable intent (and it hasn't yet in either of these cases), the religious zealots can simply try to be quiet about their true intent. Granted, most of them can't seem to do that, based on what we've seen. All they do is shout about the glory o' God and praising Jesus. The Dover creationist fiasco is a perfect example of this type of behavior. In that case, the school board couldn't say enough about Jesus when they were pushing their creationist agenda, and only later did they realize that they had screwed themselves on the public record. As a result, they figured that they had better get busy with the lies. Yes, this is typical of the Bible-thumping crowd, but if they actually figure out how to shut their pie-holes, we're concerned that they may be able to slip a lot of bullshit through the gaps created by the purpose prong.

As Justice Scalia wrote in his Dissent to McCreary:

Displays erected in silence (and under the direction of good legal advice) are permissible, while those hung after discussion and debate are deemed unconstitutional.

While for Scalia it then follows that such displays should be allowed across the board, for us it follows that they should all be equally disallowed.

The Decalogue in Government: What is an Acceptable Display?

One last item that we want to bring up is the oft-mentioned but seldom explored claim that the Supreme Court Justices make their rulings in a courtroom that showcases a display of Moses carrying the Ten Commandments. While this is technically true, anyone who can look at the Supreme Court friezes and, for example, the Texas Monument in the Van Orden case, and not see why one is an endorsement of the Christian faith and the other is not needs to have their head examined. Take a look for yourself.

First let's look at the Supreme Court friezes. You can see them on the Supreme Court web site, and we present them just below. In these depictions, Moses really is just part of a larger sequence of historical figures, which is about the history of law, not religion. Not all of the figures are associated with religion, but they are all associated with the law. You can't even see the damned commandments in the carving of Moses (particularly not the first five — remember, Hebrew goes right to left), and any rational observer would agree that this is not an endorsement of religion. So, taken in their very obvious context, the friezes are simply not religious. But don't take our word for it — check out the interactive demonstration of the friezes below.

See? It just isn't religious. And that's coming from some highly skeptical observers. Now let's compare that to a monument similar to the "monolith" in the Van Orden case. Check out our interactive Ten Commandments monument below. You can try it with the sound on (click on the speaker), but be warned: the audio is not work safe.

Yes, we know the commandments aren't actually shouted out by the Van Orden monument, but when you spell them out so boldly — like the Texas monolith does — it has pretty much the same effect. Put simply, this type of display is all about religion and it is all about God — that's the whole point of it. There is no "context" to consider, because it is presented as a standalone monument to the Judeo-Christian faith. And quite frankly, if it wasn't all about God, then why the hell would the Christian Right be so upset about the possibility of losing the monuments?

We're sure you can see the difference between these two displays for yourselves, and you're not alone. Many of the Supreme Court Justices can see the difference as well. In fact, they addressed the Supreme Court friezes in the McCreary Majority Opinion:

Nor do we have occasion here to hold that a sacred text can never be integrated constitutionally into a governmental display on the subject of law, or American history. We do not forget, and in this litigation have frequently been reminded, that our own courtroom frieze was deliberately designed in the exercise of governmental authority so as to include the figure of Moses holding tablets exhibiting a portion of the Hebrew text of the later, secularly phrased Commandments; in the company of 17 other lawgivers, most of them secular figures, there is no risk that Moses would strike an observer as evidence that the National Government was violating neutrality in religion

We can't count the number of times we've witnessed the Religious Right trotting this argument out, and we just wanted to show once and for all that they are completely off base. Here it is, folks, black and white: the message is the message, and the difference between these two messages is quite clear to any rational observer.

Why We Care

Is this split decision the end of the world? No, not at all. In the grand scheme of things, it is an admittedly small issue. But, as we've said before, we happen to believe that the small issues are absolutely worth fighting. If we continue to give up "small things" to the religious right, we add rungs to the ladder from which they can reach for larger things. All told, these two decisions do little to shift the balance in either direction. So for now, we'll be waiting for the next test case for the Establishment Clause to come down the pipe. And — perhaps more importantly — we'll be waiting to see who is sitting on the Supreme Court the next time a test case pops up.

Well,
I have found that the past is past and we follow the past to the future. If we have a future left we would have started there. To command someone of their life would be like an original no-no. Yet if we read the 10th we would have already known that the revalations would key. So in vertant text I would have to say not only, is Man a prophet to man but also is, their desire to hindure the likeness of their commanded will not only be a state of being relative to the nature of Heaven but also the presence be with the comment through time. A way thought has an excuse to rule out the ability of others would have been a state of Law. And in relavent, the past will keep only with our beliefs and thats what we have a problem. Maybe lie about how God we are and just let ourselves rest. Don't feel guilty, know we are. Little is commanded to us, and convext we believe it is. And in out, check out my music on [domain-removed] ...Search: Xudisa. I'm sure the state could put that on the wall at my old school. only if they swore by it. o.k. yanx And everything is best with an open welcome and a warm kindled mind.

— • —

[Editor's Note: Yeah, we know this is spam, but it was actually pretty interesting spam, so we just zapped the domain name and left it in. Hey, it's a more intelligent argument than most of the ones we get from the paranormalists and the religious nuts!]

"Frieze, Mohammed!" from The Two Percent Company's Rants

With the fervor over the Mohammed cartoons dying down, we happened to be checking out our archives and hit upon an old Rant about the Ten Commandments. For that Rant, we created an animation out of the actual freizes on the... [More]