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Yesterday's first and second most active threads were both on the same topic, but in different forums. I didn't know there were two different threads until just now and, having discovered it, I locked one. Rather than discuss the same topic twice, I will combine the two and talk about them both at once. The most active of the two was titled, "Louisiana orders every classroom to display Ten Commandments" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The second was titled, "Ten Commandments at LSU" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The topic both of these threads are discussing is a bill recently signed into law by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry that requires every public school classroom in the state to display a poster of the Ten Commandments. Civil liberties groups are challenging the law which they say is unconstitutional due to violating the Establishment Clause. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar law in Kentucky, ruling in the 1980 case Stone v. Graham that posters of the commandments violated the First Amendment. This suggests that the civil liberties groups are correct and will prevail in their litigation. Though, with today's Supreme Court, who knows? One justice, Samuel Alito, was recently recorded saying that the U.S. should return to a "place of godliness" and will likely support Louisiana. Justice Clarence Thomas has held that the Establishment Clause does not apply to states, meaning that he is also likely to support Louisiana. The Louisiana law attempts to frame the display of the Ten Commandments as being a document of historical value that is important to American history. One issue that I noticed with this law is that there is not a universally agreed upon version of the Ten Commandments. Catholics, for instance, have a different version than most Protestant denominations. Indeed, by my count, the version included in Louisiana's law actually contains 12 commandments. This may be an effort to appease both Catholics and Protestants. Probably the most disappointing aspect of both of these threads is that very few posters showed an inclination to adhere to values. In a perfect world, everyone would have a set of values. They might not be the same values — differences would still exist — but everyone would have some sort of code by which they lived their lives. An issue such as this would be measured against those values. Those who valued separation of church and state would naturally oppose it. Those who valued the spread of Christianity would support it. The two groups could debate in good faith. But that's not what happens in these threads. Instead, partisanship has divided folks into separate tribes and they they react on the basis of tribe rather than values. This is particularly evident among conservatives who normally claim tremendous appreciation of the U.S. Constitution, but in this case are willing to ignore or at least brush off the plain statement that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", the so-called "Establishment Clause". They argue that the U.S. is a Christian nation and, therefore, the Ten Commandments should be an acceptable document. Personally, I look forward to seeing how teachers who conservatives believe should never talk about sexual relations explain the commandment forbidding adultery to young children.