Because, you know, that's important. It feeds the hungry, treats the sick and clothes the poor when we hang copies of religious texts on the walls of our public buildings.
Recognizing that such a bill might attract litigation, our lawmakers covered themselves by casting these texts as "historical" rather than merely religious, and they mixed a handful of other "historical" texts into the bill as additional options for hanging on the walls.
But, knowing that some of these texts were blatantly religious in nature, why did lawmakers vote to approve the bill? Because "few wanted to vote against the Lord's Prayer."
Aware of the constitutional mandate of separation between church and state, the Senate declared more than a dozen of some of the nation's most revered secular and religious documents and speeches to be historical.
The documents would have to be labeled as "historical" in their display, which, along with previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, senators hope will give them constitutional cover for the displays.
The bill includes 10 original historical/religious documents, such as the Ten Commandments, along with several others lawmakers added as the legislation moved through the General Assembly. For instance, the Emancipation Proclamation and the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech were added at the Senate Judiciary Committee level. The Lord's Prayer and the 19th Amendment, establishing a woman's right to vote, were added on the Senate floor.
Some senators said the measure was unconstitutional on its face, but few wanted to vote against the Lord's Prayer.
"When the Lord's Prayer went in there, it's obvious to me that's not going to pass constitutional muster," said Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, an attorney. "We may look good doing it, but it's not good legislation."
Understandably, this item attracted some colorful bulletin-board banter. I fully expected to read opposition to hanging King's "Dream" speech. But these two stuck to the issue:
First, from Cap'n Louie:
In fact, one of the FIRST treaties this government authored stated very specifically that we are "in no way a Christian nation". Most of the founding fathers were Deists. Look that up. They were NOT Christians. The phrase "wall of separation between church and state" was written by Jefferson in a letter to a group who complained that their religious practices were not being recognized. Jefferson himself eschewed proclaiming days of prayer or fasting, even stating very specifically, that matters of religion and faith were entirely between "a man and his god."
I think the Uber-religious crowd who would shove and force Christianity on everyone around are the ones who should sit down and do some reading. They can start with their own bible, in which their prophet Jesus the Nazarene even warns them against public displays of religion and public prayers. He said the their god best listened when no one could hear but the man and the god.
So, Christians, will you practice your religion at the defiance of your own gods?
Then a response from Bob:
GET OVER IT PEOPLE, this nation was founded upon Judeo-Christian beliefs - period-end of story! We don't go into other countries demanding that our religious customs and beliefs supercede theirs and neither should immigrants coming to this country. They ALL have freedom of religion and "THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF" but you SUPPOSEDLY cannot change history and CHRISTIANITY and YES belief in JESUS CHRIST is the dominant religion in this country.
So, once AGAIN - GET OVER IT!!!!!!
As much as some would like, Christians DO NOT have to check their beliefs at the courthouse door and it is PAST time that CHRISTIANS quit acting like a bunch of WIMPS and speak out as they were COMMANDED to do!
Funny, I don't remember ever being told these things in Sunday school.
Nevertheless, neither of these comments were likely read by Joanne Mew, who works as a laundry machine operator at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Hilton Head Island, and who rides a bus five hours each workday to make the round trip to her job. Ms. Mew lives in Allendale County, 90 miles from her workplace, and she's done this for 15 years.
Why does she have to make this trip?
Jobs are scarce in Allendale County — South Carolina’s poorest — where more than one in three residents lives in poverty. The few jobs that are available pay minimum wage — $5.15 per hour — or just a few pennies more. Work on the island can pay almost double that or more.
Scores of people commute every day from Allendale and other impoverished inland towns to Hilton Head — located in the wealthiest county in the state — where they work at resorts, grocery stores, fast-food restaurants and other businesses.
Don't you wonder if Ms. Mew's life would be made better if they just hung copies of the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the 19th Amendment on the bus she rides every morning and every evening? "Historical" and religious texts hanging on the wall are a balm to the soul, aren't they?
Seven publicly financed Palmetto Breeze buses make stops each morning in Allendale, Colleton, Jasper, Hampton and Beaufort counties to shuttle people to Hilton Head jobs. Nearly 4,100 round-trips from those counties are made each month.
It wasn’t always that way. U.S. 301 through Allendale County once was the main route from New York to Miami. Then, in the 1970s, Interstate 95 was built some 30 miles east and took away the traffic. The county has never recovered from losing all that pass-through business to I-95. Allendale became a “ghost town,” County Administrator Art Williams said. Motels along U.S. 301 are boarded up; the county has only two fast-food restaurants, and, he said, “you would not find a clothing store.” Most recently, Mohawk Industries, a carpet manufacturer in Ulmer, closed in November — causing 225 people to lose their jobs.
“If there was work in Allendale, honey, I don’t think none of us would be getting on that bus,” Mew said. “They need to bring jobs down here.”
After sitting on the bus 25 hours a week, Mew has just $10 for herself at week’s end after bills are paid. “That ain’t no money; that ain’t nothing.”
Mew rises at 3:30 a.m. — five days a week — and catches a ride to the bus stop at the intersection of Railroad Avenue and Marion Street. While the bus typically doesn’t arrive until 5:10 a.m., she knows it pays to get there early.
What's really poetic is that the buses, though publicly-financed, aren't free. Ms. Mew and the others from Allendale County pay $2.50 each way for the privilege of washing hotel laundry, and cleaning hotel rooms, and cooking hotel food, and tending to hotel landscaping and golf courses on Hilton Head Island.
I don't know how long our lawmaker debated the initiative to hang the Lord's Prayer in public buildings, but I suspect it was longer than Camron Freeman gets to spend with her two daughters in Allendale:
Camron Freeman of Allendale, a 30-year-old cashier at the Hilton Head Publix, is raising two daughters. For her, the long bus ride means missing PTO meetings. As passengers around her on the way home blow off steam with laughter — some joking around with the bus driver — Freeman talks of missing her children as they grow up.
“We catch the bus at 5 o’clock, so I don’t even know what (my) child be wearing unless I put it out the night before,” she said. “One of your kids take sick, how you gonna get home?”
But with the pain comes pride. “At least you don’t have to go out here and rob, cheat and steal from somebody for some money,” Freeman said. “You got an honest-paying job.”
To learn a little more about Allendale, I did some Googling. In just a few minutes, I picked up something interesting about race in that county.
According to the 2000 census, Allendale's population included about 8,000 African-Americans and about 3,000 white residents (and fewer than 200 Hispanic residents).
And according to the state's Department of Education report card on schools and school districts published in 2003, the school district population that was given the state's standardized test that year broke down this way: white students, 32; African-American students, 804; all others, 14.
That didn't seem right, if white citizens number roughly 3,000 and black citizens account for roughly 8,000 in the entire county. Are white families not having children in Allendale?
Here's the answer: Yes, they're having children, but those children don't show up on the Allendale School District's enrollment because they don't attend the public schools there. They attend school someplace a little... whiter, shall we say?
If only the Allendale School District had the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the Emancipation Proclamation hanging in the halls of its schools, I bet children's lives would be better, and Allendale's white families would send their children to public schools there, too.
Again, I appreciate The State for these notes on their weekend website.
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