An Oklahoma Bill from 2009, HOUSE BILL 1330.
An Act relating to the state capital and Capitol Building; providing for legislative findings; creating the Ten Commandments Monument Display Act; authorizing the placement of a monument displaying and honoring the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol; authorizing the Secretary of State to work with certain persons in designing a monument; providing for the location for the monument; authorizing the Attorney General to defend certain challenges; providing for codification providing for noncodification; and providing an effective date.
Stupid. There shouldn’t be such a monument. It’s a horrible theocratic set of “commandments” and it doesn’t belong anywhere near any government buildings.
The ten. Protestant version.
I. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
II. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
III. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
IV. Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.
V. Honor thy father and thy mother.
VI. Thou shalt not kill.
VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
VIII. Thou shalt not steal.
IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors goods.
See? The first four are brazenly theocratic. The Oklahoma legislature has no business telling any citizen to do or not do any of those things.
Part of their rationale goes like this:
3. That the Ten Commandments represent a philosophy of Oklahomans and other Americans today, that God has ordained civil government and has delegated limited authority to civil government, that God has limited the authority of civil government, and that God has endowed people with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;
That’s not a philosophy, it’s a religion, that is dependent on invocation of an imagined person who does not communicate with us. It has no business being mixed up with government.