Remembering what our society was based on

SOUL FOOD

In 1957, the American Bar Assn. erected a memorial to acknowledge the

influence of the Magna Carta on our Constitution and American law.

The memorial, a classical, open-stone rotunda that shelters a

pillar of English granite inscribed with the words, “To commemorate

Magna Carta, symbol of Freedom Under Law,” sits on the banks of the

Thames in Runnymede, England, where the Magna Carta was sealed in

June 1215 by King John.

Recent photos of the 5,280-pound monument inscribed with the Ten

Commandments and 14 other texts that attest to the bond God has to

our laws and liberties and placed in the lobby of the Alabama

Judicial Building by Chief Justice Roy Moore reminded me of the

memorial at Runnymede.

The Magna Carta Memorial does not mention God as Moore’s

courthouse memorial does but the document it honors vociferously

does. Like our own foundational charter of freedom, the Declaration

of Independence, its preamble acknowledges God as the ultimate source

of human law and liberty.

The preamble of that Great Charter of English Liberties concludes,

“Know ye that we, unto the honour of Almighty God, and for the

salvation of the souls of our progenitors and successors, Kings of

England, to the advancement of holy Church, and amendment of our

Realm, of our mere and free will, have given and granted ... these

liberties following, to be kept in our kingdom of England for ever.”

The Declaration of Independence also establishes the tie between

human rights, laws, liberty and God. It begins with an appeal to “the

separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of

Nature’s God entitle” a people. Then it asserts, “We hold these

truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they

are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that

among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Magna Carta Memorial has stood in Runnymede for nearly five

decades. Moore’s monument stands to be removed from public view, on

the order of Alabama’s Supreme Court, “as soon as practicable.”

Earlier this month an 80-year-old reader of this column named

Pauline called me to talk about the pending removal of Moore’s

monument from his Alabama courthouse and her dismay at so many

efforts to dismiss God from our public life.

She was eager to let people know that Moore had supporters from

all over the country who were gathering in Montgomery to protest the

court order to remove the granite monument after U.S. District Judge

Myron Thompson ruled that it violates a constitutionally mandated

separation of church and state.

Pauline has lived several decades longer than I have lived. She

has seen so much more of our nation’s history first hand than I might

ever see. She was nearly 40 years old in 1962 when prayer began to be

banished from our public life by the ruling in Engel v. Vitale, the

first in a series of rulings that banned long-traditional religious

proceedings from public activities and observances.

In its decision in the Engel v. Vitale case, the U.S. Court of

Appeals ruled that neither a prayer’s nondenominational character nor

its voluntary character prevented it from violating the First

Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

While I remember those changes in our culture as a child rather

than as an adult, I still remember them well. When I started school

as a kindergartener prayer was woven into our day.

We prayed over our food, “Hark to the chimes come bow your head;

we thank thee Lord for this good bread.” Sometimes our bread was

stale vanilla wafers and tepid milk but after such a prayer of grace,

to me, they tasted like a feast.

In the afternoon before our naps we prayed, “Thank you Lord for

our work and play and thank you now for our restful sleep,” and sleep

we did.

Five years later we started our day with the Pledge of Allegiance

followed by a morning prayer and a reading from the King James Bible.

And we still prayed before we ate: “God is great; God is good; Let us

thank him for our food.”

I didn’t really know what I thought about God then but the

possibility of God and the faith of others heartened me. Then a year

later, without explanation, the prayers were gone. By the time I was

in high school, I was ridiculed for the faith of my parents and

grandparents.

When I learned to drive, my great grandmother sent a statue of

Jesus to place on the dashboard of my first used car. In the school

parking lot, many of my classmates chanted, “I don’t care if it rains

or freezes as long as I have my plastic Jesus sitting on the

dashboard of my car.”

A recent Los Angeles Times editorial commented on the controversy

over Moore’s monument to the foundations of our nation’s laws and

liberties this way:

“A court that embraces one religious view by allowing commandments

in the courthouse or a Christmas creche in the City Hall diminishes

citizens with different beliefs.”

Unfortunately, a court that throws out of the courthouse the

foundations of its own laws and liberties diminishes the validity of

its laws and liberties as well as citizens who hold to the beliefs of

those foundations.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].