| The Ten Commandments and the Constitution
by William B. Lindley
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Believing in more than one god, or ranking other gods above Yahweh, is a thought or state of mind: it is not an act. (*) Violation of the First Commandment is a "thought crime", never illegal in the U. S. Having other gods before Yahweh is also the free exercise of religion and is protected by the First Amendment. 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Violation of this commandment is free exercise of religion. Enacting it would violate the First Amendment. In this case it appears that God is supposed to do the punishing himself anyway. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Enactment of this one would be in conflict with the First Amendment provision for freedom of speech. 4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. While there are no true seventh days laws in the U. S., there are Sunday "blue laws" here and there,mandating that some businesses not operate on Sunday. (Choosing the first day of the week as a day of rest is a Christian corruption of the original Hebrew rule.) However, these laws have passed Constitutional muster only because they serve a secular purpose. Any evidence that the legislative intent was religious would make the law vulnerable to attack as violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The religious intent of the Fourth Commandment is clear from its wording, and it would fail the Constitutional test. (A quite different reason for the sabbath observance, also religious, is given in Deuteronomy 5:15: "And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day." 5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. Violation of this one, with no specification of what acts dishonor one's parents, or what acts honoring one's parents are required, is a thought crime and is thus not prosecutable (*). 6. Thou shalt not kill. This one is Constitutional and is on the books. 7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. As long as the government defines the institution of marriage, adultery laws can serve a secular (government) purpose. Thus, this commandment could be enacted. Some adultery laws are still on the books here and there, but criminalizing adultery is less common than it used to be. 8. Thou shalt not steal. This one is Constitutional and is on the books. 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. This one is Constitutional and is on the books. Perjury laws prohibit this particular sort of lie, along with other lies told in court. If the commandment were expanded to include derogatory remarks as well as testimony, it is on the books under the laws covering libel, but its wording appears to me to be limited to prohibiting a particular subclass of false testimony in a legal proceeding. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. Coveting is a thought, not an act. (*) So there you have it. Five of the ten fail outright, three are on the books, and two are on the books only here and there, and one of these would fail if it were enacted with its exact wording showing religious intent. Let's leave them in the Bible and in the churches, where they belong. (*) Barron's Law Dictionary , Third Edition (1991), defines as crime as: "any act which the sovereign has deemed contrary to the public good;..." (emphasis added). And further: "It has been stated that, although intent may in some circumstances make criminal an otherwise innocent act, [Badders v. United States, 240 US 391, 60 L. Ed. 706, 36 S. Ct. 369], the law does not concern itself with mere guilty intention, unconnected with any overt act or outward manifestation." [People v. Belcastro, 356 Ill. 144, 190 NE 301; American Jurisprudence 2d, Criminal Law Sec. 4] I had thought that the principle that thoughts are not crimes could be cited from less obscure sources, but the law is as you find it. I thank Daniel J. Goulding, Esq., for his kind assistance. A similar review of the Ten Commandments, but broader in scope, is given in Dan Barker's book, Losing Faith In Faith, reviewed elsewhere in this issue.
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