House Media Division
Rep. John Paul Jordan today filed a constitutional amendment for the 2016 legislative session to remove the language that formed the basis for the Ten Commandments monument ruling.
After the state Supreme Court ruled that the Ten Commandments monument must be removed from the grounds of the Capitol building, Jordan decided to file House Joint Resolution 1036, a constitutional amendment to remove the cited portion of the Oklahoma Constitution – Article II, Section 5.
“After reviewing the Supreme Court’s Ten Commandments ruling , it is clear that we have a toxic provision in our state Constitution,” said Jordan, R-Yukon. “It was written with discrimination in mind, and like a malignant tumor, needs to be removed completely. I am under the opinion the court’s strict interpretation of the language of Article 2, Section V could have far reaching implications. It could possibly lead to the Native American artwork in the Capitol and State Supreme Court buildings being removed as much of it is religious in nature. In addition, it could lead to individuals on state funded insurance programs being unable to receive medical care as a large portion of hospitals in Oklahoma are supported by a religious affiliation.
“Taken to an extreme it could even lead to churches, synagogues, mosques and other buildings used for religious purposes being unable to receive police and fire protection as they would be directly or indirectly benefiting from public monies.”
The constitutional amendment has been filed with multiple authors, with Jordan as the principal author. The following state lawmakers are named as authors – state Sen. Rob Standridge (R-Norman), Reps. Jon Echols (R-Oklahoma City), Bobby Cleveland (R-Slaughterville), Dan Fisher (R-Yukon), Mike Ritze (R-Broken Arrow), Lewis Moore (R-Edmond), Casey Murdock (R-Felt), John Bennett (R-Sallisaw), Chuck Strohm (R-Jenks), Mark McBride (R-Moore), Sean Roberts (R-Hominy), David Brumbaugh (R-Broken Arrow), Jeff Coody (R-Grandfield) and John Michael Montgomery (R-Lawton).
Ritze, who authored the monument legislation and sponsored the monument, said Ten Commandments monuments are a historic national treasure.
“They are symbolic of our system of law and our American principles,” Ritze said. “The history is clear about the roots of our nation and our legal system.”
Jordan said it was imperative to correct the problems created by the ruling.
“Ten Commandment monuments are commonplace in the United States and a widely understood historic basis for our system of law,” Jordan said. “It is important that we do not let the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision end this tradition in Oklahoma. I want to preserve the right of Oklahomans to honor the Ten Commandments by removing the portion of the Oklahoma Constitution that says a Ten Commandments monument can’t exist on state property.”
Getting that provision out of the Oklahoma Constitution can’t happen a moment too soon.
Baloney they are not historic they are religion and religion and state are to be separate as then you are pushing your religion down the throat of other voters and citizens of Oklahoma who do not believe as you do as for his stupid comment open door to removing Native American artifacts he using this as a threat because the Native American people and other states were not “Christian” till it was pushed down their throats- they believed in a great spirit and and spirit guides and their ten commandments are not ours- we all but the Native American of Oklahoma are aliens and or immigrants; interlopers if you want to be correct on Native American soil we stole from them- We stole from them, brought them disease and death and a way of life foreign to them. The founding fathers were Deist for the most part and advocated for religious freedom that is why we left England to not have to worship as the King wanted and now you want others to worship as you dictate this is not a dictatorship but seems the Republicans want it to be- what if Buddhisms was the majority religion here or hey my religion Catholic would you all feel you should be forced to believe as we do- the monument is a piece of stone and if you need it to be reminded of the ten commandments you are not very good Christians. Also considering the people on hills of Sodom and Gomorrah as that what I call capitol hill break these daily (thou shall not lie, thou shall not steal and thou shall not commit adultery) I am surprised God has not sent a lightning bolt down to break the not historic monument in half- It not historic it not been there for more than fifty years has it? You can not be a politician and not lie, they steal our tax payers (Republican politicians) for their private and pet projects and our roads go to hell in a hand basket along with our education system and benefits to our vets. Thou shall not commit adultery wow wonder what Mary thinks of that one. You all seem to take your constitution like you do your Bible pick and choose the passages that fit your personal views and bigoted opinions- AS thou shall not commit adultery a big no no for God as is thou shall not make any graven image the monument is just that-
Great Job Sir. I am the Enid man whom started the online “viral” petition to save our monument at the capitol; which now has 15K signatures. I want to invite you to attend our rally at the capitol on August 15th at 3pm. Thank you again Sir.
Yes, this is excellent. My only concern is that navigating this one issue does nothing to resolve the underlying problem. You’ve just had a body of high-powered jurists who arbitrarily decided that a Ten Commandments display–one paid for with private funds–would have to be removed, because allowing it somehow constituted using public property to support a “system of religion”.
Knowing full and well that the Ten Commandments form the GENERAL basis of many branches of religious teaching (and not any particular system) and that its tenants have counterparts in many faiths even outside the Judeo-Christian umbrella—and KNOWING GOOD AND WELL that our state and national polity evolved out of these teachings, they went ahead and made this ridiculous ruling. People who are THAT determined to wipe out any reminder of our heritage and every hint of a religious contribution to society will stop at virtually nothing—once this loop hole is plugged, what keeps them from just finding another? I think we’ve got to go beyond resolving this particular issue and put measures in place to stop the abuse of judicial abuse of power in order to keep things like this from happening again.
Wow, lots of action on religion – how about some similar action on fixing roads and bridges?
And a question – are any Demos in favor of this action?
OK, another question – will the amendment allow the state to pay for any religious stuff, or just to provide a public space?
Requiring the general public to pay for any religious stuff is probably going too far – what are churches for?
What do you mean by “religious ‘stuff'”? The law doesn’t say anything about “religious ‘stuff'”. All the law says is that the state won’t provide public funds or property to support a church, preacher, or system of religion. It DOES NOT mandate that we eliminate any and all religious references or suppress any and all religious expression if there is even the most obscure, indirect link to the state.
The entire thrust of the law was supposed to be that of allowing free exercise of religion without mandating or preferring one particular system over another. That’s it! Having “In God We Trust” on our currency, state employees putting a religious saying on their screen saver, teachers praying over their meals at lunch time, having the Ten Commandments displayed at the U.S. Supreme Court building, state employees saying “Merry Christmas” –and all of these other issues being trumped up and shoved down our throats in an effort to eliminate all vestiges or suggestions of a religious component to our heritage—were NEVER the issue. And neither is a beautiful, privately-funded monument at our state capital.
This is what you call a red herring. We may, indeed, need to be paying more attention to roads and bridges–your county commissioners and the people in charge of allocating road repair funds didn’t just try to remove a beloved state monument (that was paid for with private funds) over some obscure loop hole in an amendment, did they?
I could turn the same question around and put it this way: “why are we concerned about roads and bridge when we’ve got state Supreme Court justices trying to eliminate a major component of our heritage”? If this is really such a non-issue, then fine, let’s rescind the ruling and move on—how about that?
This proposal should not go through at all. This monument needs to go-it is a violation of separation of church and state and is, therefore, unconstitutional. The founding fathers did not use the Ten Commandments nor the Bible in general when it came to forming our system of government and laws. This is a fallacy propagated by right wing extremists and historically false.