Hopefully because he grew up

So a legal challenge to remove a statue of the Ten Commandments in Maryland has been dropped.  The reason, according to this story, is not mentioned.  Hopefully it’s because the fellow stopped and thought about what kind of country we’re building.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I moved to a country steeped in Islam or even atheism, I wouldn’t be bothered if the overall culture reflected that influence, even in places like government buildings.  Nations have a right to define themselves.  As long as I was free to openly exercise my own faith, that’s the price of living in any nation on earth.  I wouldn’t think of jumping up and down and holding my breath and launching lawsuits until everyone else had to conform to me.  If I was bothered by it to the point of mental and emotional collapse, I’d find somewhere else to live.

But then I was taught as a child that if I showed up at a playground and there was a bunch of kids playing baseball, I could join in or find something else to do.  I had no reason to believe that the kids already there playing baseball must immediately stop and do what I want, or everyone should go home and nobody gets to play anything.  That’s because I wasn’t taught that the ten billion year history of the universe only exists in order to spin around my singular awesomeness.

I understand that for some secularists, exploiting the SCOTUS interpretations of the First Amendment is not about building a tolerant society, but it is about eradicating the beliefs and religious views it disagrees with in order to build a nation based on its own values and belief systems.  Nonetheless, I fear that the overall effect has been to create a nation where generation after generation believes that I’m justified for being offended to the point of actual harm unless everything in my country spins around the axis of me.  Given the harsh reality of the world and the unlikelihood of such a reality ever panning out, I wonder if more problems, not less, will be the end result.