10 Commandments, Ten Commandments Quotes
There were those who disagreed with Sekulow, especially those whose religions did not recognize the Ten Commandments. Others see the Ten Commandments not in a religious sense but in a cultural sense and therefore the display in the Supreme Court—along with other world historical scenes of laws and lawgiving—was a historical and cultural display which did not help to “establish” any religion.
This was a poem on copyright infringement which he held wrong. In American history, there has always been a significant part of the American population who were opposed to copyright on both moral and public policy grounds. In the first decades of existence, the United States did not legally recognize copyright. American publishers copied and republished English works with no compunctions. Benjamin Franklin was one of the worst offenders for people who saw it as an offence. English publishers and some American authors lobbied heavily in America and finally got Congress to pass copyright legislation. However, with every new technology, the battle is fought anew, and large numbers of Americans will use copyrighted material contrary to existing law and feel morally justified in doing so, Publishers and other owners of intellectual property then over compensate and they have lobbied heavily to stop what they call piracy by impinging what used to be the legitimate rights of consumers, readers and scholars—even those who were not violating copyright. It is another of those American political issues that never gets settled and is battled in almost every generation.
In 1859 Boston public school students were required to recite the Ten Commandments from the King James version of the Bible each week. Thomas Wall, an 11 year old Catholic refused to recite from the King James Protestant version of the Bible. His teacher then beat him until he complied. His parents filed an assault complaint against the teacher. The Boston police court not only exonerated the teacher but excoriated the Walls. Some day a Jew might ask to swear his court oath. The “slippery slope” argument that the court made referred to the fact that orthodox Jews pray facing Jerusalem often with a prayer shawl over their heads. The Pentateuch is the first 5 books of the Old Testament which Jews recognize as opposed to the entire Bible.
