On balance, it seems to me that the Supreme Court got it more right than wrong yesterday in its Ten Commandments opinions. The atmosphere of the 1950's was substantially different than that of the past decade. While characterizing the motivations of the Fraternal Order of Eagles and Cecil B. DeMille in their distribution of monuments in the 1950's may be difficult, it is not difficult to characterize the motivations of those posting the commandments in Kentucky courthouses. They were attempting to reclaim a Christian America. The scrambling to hide that motivation is something that only lawyers could ignore. The net effect of the rulings will be to prohibit new monuments today motivated by Christian evangelism, while keeping the bulldozers away from scores of courthouse lawns around the country.
There is evidence, however, that evangelicals are already misreading the opinions. The Washington Post reported that within hours of the decisions, the Christian Defense Coalition announced a campaign to erect monuments similar to the one in Texas in 100 cities across the country as a way to preserve the country's Christian heritage. And the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reports a rush by Indiana legislators to place the Ten Commandments on Indiana's statehouse lawn. It is the motivation, not the location or form of the depiction, that is key to yesterday's holdings. Only willful blindness could lead to a different conclusion.
