If this provision stays in the final measure, the printing presses will start rolling with various translations of the Ten Commandments. Religious leaders, including my fellow evangelicals, will show up at school board meetings to advocate posting as a cure-all for violence in the schools. But the idea that Ten Commandments on walls will change minds and hearts, is naive and ill-advised for a number of reasons. First, this token action will misdirect appropriate responses to violence by taking the pressure off parents who must assume responsibility for the behavior of their children. If kids lack moral character when they reach school, there is very little that the school can do to significantly remedy the damage.
Character is homemade.
Second, the Congress doesn't have the authority to interpret the Constitution, and the posting of the Ten Commandments is a violation of my First Amendment right to freedom of religion. This is the amendment that was first advocated by evangelical Christians, who won the crucial support of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison because evangelicals were being victimized by the state churches of the day. Without separation of church and state, the discrimination against evangelical Christians would have continued for decades after the adoption of the Constitution. When the chips are down, we are still a minority in the United States and may well need the protection of the First Amendment down the road. Third, official posting of the Ten Commandments not only violates the religious beliefs of certain minorities in society but, as far as I am concerned, it also obfuscates the real meaning of New Testament Christianity.