Ten Commandments in schools? Oregon Senate says no

(Compiled from various news sources)

SALEM -- Students will not see the Ten Commandments displayed in Oregon schools alongside documents such as the U.S. Constitution. After two hours of spirited debate, the Oregon Senate voted 16-14 May 14 against a measure that would have given schools that option.

Backers of the measure said the right to display the commandments is an issue of religious freedom and that Christianity is inseparable from the fabric of American history and culture.

Many of those arguing against the bill said they are Christians who embrace the commandments in their personal life. “I believe that they are the divinely inspired word of God,” said Sen. Frank Shields, D-Portland, a longtime Methodist preacher. “I can't vote for this because we are in the middle of a pluralistic society.”

Sen. Joan Dukes, (D), Astoria, said that if the Ten Commandments were allowed to hang in the school rooms, the teachers would not be able to explain to the children if they asked questions about the Commandments. She said that she pitied the poor first- grade teacher whose students asked for an explanation of “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Several lawmakers said they received no letters from churches in their districts urging them to pass the measure.

Testifying on the measure in a March public hearing, the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, an association of 17 denominations, urged lawmakers not to pass the bill. Even if the bill were to become law, some questioned how effective it would be. “Values will never be taught by displaying them on the wall of some government building,” said Sen. Rick Metsger, D-Welches.

Sen. Charles Starr, R-Hillsboro, who sponsored the bill, showed a display board with the Magna Carta, the U.S. Consti-tution, the Declaration of Independence and the Ten Commandments mounted on it. Two senators displayed the framed copies of the Ten Commandments given to them by the Oregon Christian Coalition. One spoke for the measure (Sen. Gary George, R- Newberg) and one spoke against (Dukes). In a Portland talk after the vote, George noted that 160 school districts had called about spending tax payers’ money to bus their students to see and hear the Dalai Lama.

George said he was an atheist until he was 32 years old, but he can recall the Ten Command-ments hanging on his school room wall as a child. He said they did not offend him then, they do not offend him now, and “if we can tolerate the Dalai Lama, we can surely tolerate the Ten Commandments,” said George.

“Even though the bill was defeated, we are thankful that it was able to go that far,” wrote Suzanne Brownlow of Concerned Women of America of Oregon, in an e-mail to CWA supporters. “The Lord God is sovereign. Thank the supporting senators who stood up for what is right and gently reprove the senators who voted against it.”

David Crowe of Lake Oswego, who heads the “Restore America” campaign to encourage more Christians to vote, wrote by e-mail after the Senate vote that it is indicative of “the problem in Salem ... too many uninformed, hysterical, mantra-quoting anti- Christian legislators with no understanding of our true history nor even the First Amendment.”

Crowe said there was reason “to be proud of those Christians in the legislature who stand for righteousness, and ... you will understand the need for we Christians to turn out and vote and remove those who here demonstrated they are not true to either the Constitution or the truth.

“Only with representatives who know and are committed to the truth, will we stop the secular push to take over America,” Crowe concluded.