The pitcher of the 10 commandments should not be taken down nor edited from Giles county school.

Before I start on rebuttals, I’d like to start one new argument that just screams out at me after reading my opponents case and seeing an obvious contradiction which is just funny that it exist in these debates. “Likewise, if a public school wanted to reflect the atheism of the local community by favoring non-religion, the government would have a problem with that, too.” “The context provided does not provide a basis for establishing a secular purpose or secular effect to the pitcher” http://dictionary.reference.com... is not imposing secular purposes the favoring of non-religion or atheism by definition? So really your causing the state to do just what you say they should have a problem with. Cause you just admitted atheism and non-religion itself are part of what “cant be favored” in our schools. Anyway…..rebuttal time “They show Government favoritism of Judo-Christian religion” As tyanical and controlling our teachers and principals can sometimes seem, its important we remember they are not our government. It was “the school board” who made a choice to put up the photo. While as a board they are a governing body much like the state I did not get to elect a single member that’s on it cause that’s not how they work, and so they are not the strictly speaking the state. The State pays for there institution provides the standards they are to meet. Tell me if I give $30,000 to Mitt Romney’s campain does that mean I get to order him to shave the hair off his head cause I think that image works better for him as a canadite? “sends the message to nonadherents "that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community,” Wow… you have to read waaaayyy to much into that pitcher for all that to come out of it. If I put you next to the average kid in Giles County school to walk through the hall with the display and you said “this here is a clear message the school is trying to tell me that I’m an outsider, I’m not really one of the rest of you, not completely part of the community so long as I’m an atheist” they would start backing away from you slowy thinking you’re insane and paranoid. Weather its of an Icon or not that’s simply way to freakin much to read into a pitcher you see on the wall. You kind of deliberately have to overthink the sight of it to think it’s a message to say that. And if your in doubt that you could have a paranoid sort of mind that’s got you looking to deep into the pitcher (and I’m not criticizing, my personality is prone to paranoia too) just look to the schoolboards actual official statements on the purpace to read the plane face value meaning of why the put the pitcher up. Part of the history of democracy is how its roots were affected by iconic stone tablets. If the pitcher ment all that other stuff the school board would just say “we want the students to know wich are really one of the rest of us and wich are not” Also even if we are to go as far and say the pitcher sends the message “your not one of us” this does not cause “favoritism” of a religion because individuality is as glorified, and valued (if not more so) as “fitting in”. So to point out a person is different would be…to point out no consequential thing. Pitcher provides no reasonable connection with surrounding photos… Again, these are just pitchers in a hallway. No hallway displays are made to replace reading an actual textbook, so if you don’t get why it fits in with the rest go google it. “I seriously doubt a reasonable observer can ignore the plainly religious nature of the pitcher” “The problem with Marauder's argument is that it insists that the Ten Commandments have historic value, but in doing so, Marauder ignores the actual history of the United States.” Both of the above I think would get addressed by a few quotes from George Washington to clear things up. ““The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained” “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” “It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.” George Washington is as Founding Father as its gets and its pretty clear from his famous statements that excluding things of religious nature from the government was not the desire or intention of the first amendment. To get the “smiles of Heaven” he wanted America as a nation to obey all 10 of the commandments. You do not have to ignore the religious nature of the pitcher in the display, that’s part of the whole point of displaying it with the other historic documents, that it had its affect on them. That’s just truth, not favoritism. You cant erase that fact out of our history just because you don’t like it. and it shouldn’t be taken offensively to start with. That’s just how our country got started.