Thou shalt not

Whether monument stays or goes isn’t one person’s decision

Aheadline writer can go an entire career without an opportunity to draft an offering like the one that appeared on the front page of Thursday’s edition.

“Ten Commandments broken,” the headline said.

That’s headline-writing gold. It wasn’t a commentary on modern-day man’s penchant for behaviors that run counter to the biblical Decalogue. If that were the case, the headline would be as common as “NWA man arrested on illegal porn charge.” It may be inattention to the former has something to do with the latter, but that’s a discussion for another day.

In this case, the Ten Commandments were literally broken into pieces. It didn’t involve the biblical Moses or even Charleton Heston, the late actor who plays him every year on TV thanks to Cecil B. Demille’s work. It involved a man in a 2016 Dodge Dart who, police say, sped onto the Capitol grounds in Little Rock and crashed into a monument placed there a mere 24 hours earlier.

For at least the second time in recorded history, the Ten Commandments were smashed.

The incident opened a new chapter (and verse) to the effort by state Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow, and others who support the presence on the Capitol grounds of a monument detailing the biblical Ten Commandments, first delivered to Moses and the Hebrews from Mount Sinai. Rapert sponsored legislation two years ago to authorize the stone monument’s placement once enough private fundraising had taken place to pay for it.

It was only Tuesday morning that crews moved the monument into place. As monuments go, it was an impressive six-foot-tall depiction of all those Thou Shalts and Thou Shalt Nots others suggest shalt not have a place on public property. For some, its presence inappropriately and perhaps unconstitutionally blurs the lines between religion and government. A particularly all-American document, the U.S. Constitution, bars government from laws that would establish a favored religion. Critics suggest making a monument to the Ten Commandments part of Arkansas’ most recognized icon of government crosses a line.

Rapert obviously disagrees, arguing the Decalogue is a foundation of American jurisprudence rightly displayed on public property.

One might think 241 years into this democratic experiment that the question would already be settled. The use of biblical or religious phrases on public buildings or on the nation’s coinage has been the subject of litigation for years. The courts, however, have delivered rulings with nuances that defy any one-size-fits-all application.

Plenty of folks in Arkansas just don’t care. If the Ten Commandments were good enough for Moses and the Hebrews, they ought to be good enough for the people of our state. Never mind that government represents all Americans and, in this case, all Arkansans. And we hate to break the news, but not all Arkansans are people of faith who believe in the Ten Commandments, let alone any other Scripture.

So it is that the saga of Arkansas’ Ten Commandments monument was undoubtedly headed to court. That is where such disputes need to be decided, according to our American system. But the man in the Dodge Dart took matters into his own hand in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

Even those who oppose the monument’s placement decried the vigilante mentality behind a one-person attack designed to settle the matter. Whether the monument is legal or illegal, the American way is for the issue to be adjudicated through one of the three branches of government, the judiciary.

Despite plenty of rhetoric about the act being born of hatred or incivility, the alleged driver’s history suggests a struggle with mental illness. Authorities in Oklahoma said the same man, who apparently lives in Van Buren, attempted to destroy a Ten Commandments monument in that state some time ago. Perhaps the lesson to be learned from all of this has less to do with political differences than with how we respond to the people within our communities who struggle with mental illness. No monument can help them. Only treatment can.

As one easily could have predicted, fundraising for a replacement is already under way. Undoubtedly some Arkansans will be motivated to give even more so than before, convinced Wednesday’s crash is the devil’s work. We suspect Rapert won’t have any problems finding donations to put toward Arkansas’ Ten Commandments, Version 2.

Arkansas doesn’t need this monument or the fight required to settle the issue of its placement. But need doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s politics. It’s campaigning. It’s conjuring a controversy that allows supporters to feel as though they’ve put God back where He belongs, in public policy.

That presence won’t be determined by a slab of rock, nor will it be deterred by a Dodge Dart.