Fresh off the claims of persecution at not hearing Merry Christmas in the big stores (certainly an odd place to look for Christ in the first place) and a court decision in Pennsylvania that called Intelligent Design what it was (stealth religion), many of the my-way-or-no-way types are cheering the Mercer County decision.

There, a Court of Appeals said the 10 Commandments could remain on the Courthouse wall since they were slipped in among other historical documents. The court went on to say the American Civil Liberties Union did not have standing in the court as a “reasonable person.” The court also said it could not find any religious intent in the display.

The cheering is premature.

What's the point to putting up the 10 Commandments if there's no religious intent involved? It's hard to express any more religious intent than that found in the 10 Commandments.

So, if people want the 10 Commandments in the Courthouse and want them to be part of government decision-making, they will have to deny their religion to get it done. Expect to hear a rooster crow three times if any religious person is going to hang up these commandments, and if he or she does reject, even temporarily, their religious intent, they've broken one of the commandments they're hanging up.

This, coupled with the documents that have to be included in an “historical display,” that tell you plainly to take them down again, is enough to simply leave a reasonable person thinking he's watching Laurel and Hardy again.

And if the ACLU no longer has standing as a reasonable person, then the well-financed pro-religion of some sort groups on the other side of the coin aren't going to be reasonable persons, either.

What the court seems to be saying here without actually saying it is that they're sick and tired of these goofy suits about a subject they've ruled on numberless times as being unconstitutional. They're saying, in effect, don't waste our time trying to meld religion and government. In other words, get over it!

One result of the Marion decision is that it has generated a sudden uptick in interest in history among 2006 candidates for government offices. Politicians are less put off by stealth than the truly religious, and it seems there are votes involved in getting religion into government.

But it might be good if the politicians have a true interest in history and study it a little. They do need to sift through the myriad of cultures brought to their knees (in a prayer for deliverance) and to their deaths by governments pumped up on religion. Modern history has them, too -- the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Lord's Resistant Army with its children soldiers it has made orphans in North Uganda, the ayatollahs in the Middle East. There's lots of history.

Even if the new history-buff politicians do study, it is still a question as to whether or not they can stand up to preachers whose sermons get more and more unkind, egged on by parishioners in the theros of new-found and little-understood rapture. The still, small voice is drowned out.

In recent interviews about his new book (“Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis”), Former President, Nobel Prize Winner and Sunday School Teacher Jimmy Carter is saying the current fuzzing of the lines between government and religion will seriously damage both and result in the loss of liberties Americans have enjoyed for over 200 years. He writes a thin book but a very sad one.

The Bible lists only one place where the 10 Commandments are to be displayed -- on the facing of the front door of a home about at eye-level of a 12-year-old. That's so that when children grow tall enough to look straight at them and ask, their parents or a trusted adult can tell them what they mean. It's the ultimate family value.

It is not difficult to understand those in government who are jealous of the power of religion and would do about anything, stealthily or otherwise, to possess it. What is beyond comprehension is the growing numbers of so-called religious people who are willing to hand it over to them. Talk about throwing pearls before swine!

It seems religious people would ask themselves what they would do about a government who used the considerable power of religion against the very people who handed it over to them. All government would need would be a well-financed ad campaign to get out the vote and an entire belief system could be null and void.

As for the other court ruling on Intelligent Design, there is little to say, because nobody knows what it is, not even the people proposing it. In my time on earth, this is the wierdest idea I've ever seen presented.

I'm rejecting ID, and going on the record for dumb luck. The returns look better.