Fundamentalist Christians are in a tizzy over the recent removal of 5,300 pounds of Biblical injunctions from the rotunda of the Alabama state judicial building. One wonders how two and a half tons of Ten Commandments got inside the building in the first place. It must have been divine intervention, because it miraculously showed up one morning complete with freshly-chiseled Roman numerals and a list of "Thou shalt nots." The "hand of God" in this miracle was none other than state Chief Justice Roy Moore, who surreptitiously installed the granite block like a thief in the night or a pious fraternity prankster.

When a federal judge had the monument removed last week, scores of indignant Christians took up God's defense and decried the loss of religious liberty. And now, Christian radio host James Dobson has girded his loins with self-righteousness, declaring that federal judges are "determined to shove their beliefs down our throats." Moore has vowed to take his cause straight to the U.S. Supreme Court, the same court Pat Robertson prays will soon suffer a 33 percent mortality rate.

Not that the prohibition of lying, killing, or stealing isn't good for society; we need it to maintain order. But the commandment topping the Ten says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." If anyone is shoving beliefs down throats, it's Moore, and 5,300 pounds is enough to gag anyone. Personally, I don't object to the first commandment or even the one that says I can't covet my neighbor's lawnmower, but it's none of my government's business whether I worship the Judeo-Christian God or a God of Glazed Donuts. Putting that marker on publicly-owned property is nothing less than an endorsement of a particular religion: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . ."

Once again, religious liberty is threatened by those claiming dibs on supernatural truth. Our country was not founded as a Christian nation. To assert so confuses its settlement with its establishment as a political entity. Pilgrims and Puritans came to America seeking religious freedom; a freedom they applied only to themselves. Native Americans and the doctrinally suspect were either kicked out or sent speedily off to hell. Unfortunately, the Puritans never left, and now, they're at the gate, scarlet letters in hand.

Fundamentalists like to say that "separation of church and state" isn't in the Constitution. Literally speaking, they're right. But in 1802, President Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association that the Constitution built a "wall of separation between church and state." In the early 1800s, James Madison, Father of the Constitution, said, "Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States." The concept is implicit in the First Amendment and endorsed by the Founders, even if the literal phrase doesn't appear. By the way, the word "God" isn't in there either.

Squire Moore's cries of persecution are an affront to thinking people, in this, the most religiously tolerant and diverse nation on earth. He should go to Tibet or China or Saudi Arabia to see what real religious persecution is. But he won't, because, in this country, he may freely practice his faith. God help us, though, if the Decalogians crash the gate. We may find ourselves agreeing with H.L. Mencken: "Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them."

Shane Schneider is the assistant editor of the Lyons Kansas Daily News. Reprinted with permission.