POV fix ==

I removed text that claimed that most liberals claim the posting of the commandments on a government building violated the "separation of church and state" (and the statement that "separation of church and state is not part of the constitution" or whatever it was) and replaced it with "liberals oppose the posting of the Ten Commandments on public property, arguing that it violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States." and I wikified the link to the first amendment.

While posting the ten commandments is not literally "making a law" establishing a state religion, it could create a "slippery slope" situation that eventually entangles government in religion to a degree that the establishment clause is more likely to be violated.  It is a rational position to presume that it is safer for the constitution for the government to "avoid the appearence" of impropriety by not posting religious symbols.  I wonder how many Christian or Jewish groups would like to walk past a Ganesh or Buddha statue whenever they go to court?  Probably they wouldn't.  Religious neutrality is a critical element of American civil society, and reflects the reality of pluralistic religious faith.  By acknowledging none, the government is actually honoring all of them and the beliefs of every American as equal.  

It would also violate the Equal Protection clause for the religious beliefs of any citizen, including a belief that the ten commandments were of divine origin, or that the clearly religious commandments must be upheld to avoid angering a god, to be sponsored by the government by posting them as they commonly are on government buildings.

These positions better reflect the normative liberal view of the establishment clause, and I will see if it is possible to work them into the article as a description of these philosophies, without promoting them.  Understanding positions that are contrary to your own can be an important source of personal intellectual growth.

I also explained the conservative/religious view of the posting a bit better, and deleted the reference to the Dershowitz article because 1) it was totally irrelevant (about same sex marriage, not posting the ten commandments), and 2)the editor who referenced it to support his POV argument that liberals only favor a separation of church and state when it suits their purposes either deliberately or accidently misunderstood Dershowitz's point.  Dershowitz was arguing that government should be less entangled in deciding who could get married than it is now, and leave it to the individual religious to decide what marriages are acceptable.  This would promote the separation of church and state, not undermine it.  Because it was both POV, and reflected confused thinking, not to mention totally irrelevant, I simply removed it rather than trying to fix it.

 

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