Myth #7: Texas Had a Secular Purpose for Accepting the Eagles-donated Monument

[Chapter 9, post #9]

“In the present case, the religious purpose was evident on the part of the donating organization. When the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the group that gave the monument to the State of Texas, donated identical monuments to other jurisdictions, it was seeking to impart a religious message.”

Justice Souter [1]

This post will be short; otherwise it would be a restatement of Myth #6’s discussion of Texas’s so-called secular purpose[2] for accepting and displaying a Ten Commandments monument donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles.
 
With blinders on, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States accepted without examining the Texas legislature’s stated purpose as being a valid secular purpose for purposes of the Establishment Clause.  Not even a peek under the covers!  How could there be such a break down in the judicial function?  How could the Court deny Thomas Van Orden EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW?

The only answer that I have been able to come up with after studying the Eagles’ Ten Commandments program and the Supreme Court decision in Van Orden v. Perry for more than five years is that the plurality of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas are part of the Christian Right movement of evangelicals actively seeking Christian dominion over the people of the United States.[3]  (Justice Breyer, who concurred in the judgment of Van Orden, was apparently persuaded by the winds of pragmatism.) 

Based on (a) the history of the Fraternal Order of Eagles Ten Commandments program, (b) my discussion of “secular purpose” in Myth #6: The Lemon Test Is Not “Useful,” (c) the Texas Ten Commandments monument being facially religious, (c) Texas, being in the “Bible Belt,” has history of endorsing religion and (e) the many deceptive arguments of the Chief Justice in Van Orden and the opinions of the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas in other cases, this author concludes that the State of Texas did not have a valid secular purpose for accepting and displaying the Eagles-donated Ten Commandments tombstone.

---

[1]  Van Orden v. Perry (Justice Souter dissenting, joined by Justices Stevens and Ginsburg), at 738.  See Adland v. Russ, 307 F.3d 471, 475 (C.A.6 2002) (quoting the Eagles' statement in a letter written to Kentucky when a monument was donated to that Commonwealth: “ ‘Most of today's younger generation either have not seen the Ten Commandments or have not been taught them. In our opinion the youth of today is in dire need of learning the simple laws of God ... ’ ”). Accordingly, it was not just the terms of the moral code, but the proclamation that the terms of the code were enjoined by God, that the Eagles put forward in the monuments they donated.

[2]  To commend and congratulate the Fraternal Order of Eagles “for its efforts in combating juvenile delinquency throughout our nation.”

[3]  This assessment is also based on other Supreme Court cases involving “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, religious symbols on public property, prayer and teaching creationism in public schools, funding private religious schools via vouchers, abortion and gay rights.