Tear down the U.S. supreme court building?

• Author: McCorkle, Vern C.
• Position: From the Publisher

Every so often, writers fall back on a favorite old chestnut: the separation of Church and State. March is one of those times for us. Just call it March Madness, if you like.

Recently some interesting points on the topic have come our way that we think you will enjoy thinking about, and so we share them with you here.

The subject is not altogether without gravity, given the contemporary concern over ethics, from politics to pulpits and beyond-right into outer space!

How could we as a country and as a People have gotten so estranged from our founding and basic principles? We're in just a bit of a mess, frankly: parents killing kids, kids killing kids, preachers and priests gone amuck. And that's only at the local level.

IMPEACH PRESIDENT JAMES MADISON?

The fourth president of the United States and credited with being the father of the Constitution is remembered as having said:

"We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

The Ten Commandments? Great Scott! They nearly cover the U.S. Supreme Court Building portico in Washington, D.C. If one looks up upon entering the building, to be seen overhead in life-size marble statues, are the famed lawgivers of the world. Each look toward a man in the center who is facing full forward: Moses, by name, holding the tablets upon which are written-what? The Ten Commandments, that's what.

And as one enters the historic courtroom where the Justices sit, you pass through two massive oak doors upon which are engraved-what? The Ten Commandments. And immediately above the heads of the Justices is yet another display of The Ten Commandments. By-and-by, a befrocked clergyman comes to open each session with a prayer to God, as he has done ever since 1777, at the Court and in Congress. He is paid with...