The 5th Commandment

Taking the Fifth:

I was looking at the Kagan email archives, which are an interesting project, when I was surprised to see the subject heading: "5th commandment." I hadn't gotten the impression that Dr. Kagan was terribly religious, so I clicked on it to see what the email said.

It's basically talking points on a bill allowing the posting of the Ten Commandments in schools. They are remarkably coy in the most disgusting fashion of D.C. politics. Note that this message was forwarded, not written, by Dr. Kagan.

Jose checked the Catholic Web page, and Thou shalt not kill IS the 5th Commandment, so John gets the VP's award for Faith-Based Person of the Week.

Here's a longer Q&A for the 10 Commandments question:

Q. will the President support the amendment passed by the House to let
schools post the 10 Commandments?

A. If the House were serious, they would have remembered the Fifth
Commandment -- Thou Shalt Not Kill -- and voted to make it harder for
criminals to buy guns.

So, will the President support the amendment? No, but neither will he admit that he's not supporting the amendment. Rather, he will cite the Ten Commandments as a means of undermining the movement to honor them.

Now that reminds me of something...



Now, there are definitely valid questions for Americans -- and even Christian Americans -- about how much of the Old Testament Law they are really interested in bringing forward into modern life. The honest position here is, well, the honest position: "I don't believe the Ten Commandments are a proper guide for modern America." That's a perfectly defensible position.

What bothers me is this pose of being the superior readers of scripture -- and in the Kagan case, by people who admit they had to look it up to be sure which one they wanted to name. Even in the Obama case, the claim is that "folks haven't been reading their Bibles." I'd bet against that claim proving true; but again, the pose is one of arrogant intellectual superiority.