The following day the paper's liberal editors heaved a sigh of relief, proclaiming "Halleljah. The Harrisburg School Board has seen the light" and buried the issue in a committee. Harrisburg parent Alexandra Romanov told the paper she was pleased the board "finally did the legal thing."

Rev. Terry Gwaltney, organizer of Raise the Standard, a local group that campaigns for the posting, declared "it's not over."

Following a public meeting of 800 people on November 16 the board first narrowly voted not to reverse a unanimous October decision to post the religious document. That decision openly defied U.S. Supreme Court rulings upholding the U.S. Constitution's provisions guaranteeing the separation of church and state and freedom of religion.

A town of just over 9,000 people, Harrisburg, Illinois, is a farming community that lies in the heart of the Midwestern coal mining region.

Rightist political forces are using the issue to drive a wedge dividing working people. The Southern Illinoisan quoted Molly Wilson, a Harrisburg student, who said the issue "has divided the school exactly in half."

Claiming it is an historical document, the school board first voted to post the set of holy rules in the schools, along with the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta, at the urging of Darrell Scott from Littleton, Colorado. His daughter, Rachel, was one of 15 people shot to death at Columbine High School earlier this year

Scott had spoken at two rallies and a school board meeting in the town. He argued, "something has got to be done other than gun control and turning our schools into prisons," referring to measures advocated by many politicians in the aftermath of the Littleton shootings—measures that attack democratic rights.  
 

A right-wing campaign

Some houses, churches, and businesses in the town display yard signs with the Ten Commandments and a white ribbon campaign has been organized in support of the earlier school board decision.

Between the first two meetings, Judy Cape, a local attorney and an outspoken defender of separation of church and state, was sworn in as a new member of the board. Cape moved to rescind the October decision. Cape, along with her daughter Emma, a junior high school student, has publicly spoken out against the posting, including at a forum sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

The overwhelming majority of the 800 people at the open November meeting supported the posting. Some people wore T-shirts emblazoned with the Ten Commandments and a crucified hand and the words "post my ten" under it.

Gwaltney announced that the Liberty Counsel, the American Center for Law and Justice, and the Rutherford Center had pledged to pay for the legal defense of the board's decision. All are rightist outfits that in the name of defending religious freedom attack civil rights of gays, oppose women's right to choose abortion, and organize against teaching evolution.

Liberty Counsel president and general counsel founder Matthew Staver recently wrote that Christian rightists must "take America back." He said the country has become a "rotting corpse" because "evolution is king" and God has been kicked out of the schools.

A handful of young people at the November 16 meeting, including Emma Cape, wore red, white, and blue ribbons to show they support separation of church and state.

In the discussion several people, including Leonard Gross of the ACLU, spoke against the display. The ACLU raised the possibility of filing suit.  
 

Separation of church, state is a right

When I was in grade school and through much of junior high school in Pennsylvania, a state law (passed in 1949 as part of the anticommunist witchhunt) required the school day be opened with a reading of 10 verses from the Bible and a recitation of the Lord's Prayer. Teachers could be fired for failing to comply. Students who declined to participate faced harassment.

The purpose these exercises served was to instill blind obedience, conformity, and discipline. The Supreme Court finally outlawed those compulsory religious exercises in 1963 after lawsuits by the Unitarian family of Edward Schempp in Abington, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore atheists Madalyn Murray and her son.

What's wrong with posting the Ten Commandments? Harrisburg dentist Michael Cook, who addressed the board, said the Ten Commandments should be posted to "remind our students there is a standard of moral conduct."

It's not true that the Ten Commandments are just good rules to live by. They are ancient statutes codifying compulsory monotheism. Posting them in public schools a violation of the fundamental right of working people to freely decide their religious views.

The Ten Commandments are a small portion of an elaborate set of ancient laws recorded in the Old Testament. Among other things this body of law spelt out that the penalty for violating strictures on worshipping one almighty God was death by stoning.

Monotheism reflected the emergence of the father-dominated family, private property, and classes.

The state developed as the supreme power through which the ruling class oppressed and extracted tribute from all others. Monotheism provided the ideological heavy artillery of the oppressing classes by hallowing the family patriarch, governing authorities, and priesthood, and the state headed by priests.

The Tenth Commandment is abbreviated in the Harrisburg version as "Thou shall not covet." In its unabridged form it sanctified private property, which was still a new, and difficult to impose, social relation in ancient times. This holy mandate classified women and slaves as chattel, along with oxen and donkeys.

Class-conscious workers defend the democratic right of believers of all faiths to practice their religion free from discrimination. Imposing a religious document on all those attending a public school is the opposite of this right.

In the culture war the rightists seek to roll back women's rights and the rights of all working people and youth—often in the name of defending "Christian values." One student was heard commenting after the meeting, "These are the same people that want to take away abortion rights." This is part of the employers' drive against our wages, heath care, and union rights, and part of the rulers' drive to war.  
 
 
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