Monday, November 15, 1999
Youths rally for Ten Commandments
Wednesday is commandment T-shirt day
BY SARA J. BENNETT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Jed Cadle of Hamilton prays at a Hamilton Christian Center youth rally.
(Steven M. Herppich photo)
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HAMILTON — Area students are being encouraged to wear T-shirts bearing the Ten Commandments to school Wednesday to defend and promote their use in public education around the nation.
The leader of the movement is the Rev. Rob Schenck, founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Ten Commandments Project. Hundreds of youths gathered Sunday at the Hamilton Christian Center to hear him speak.
The Rev. Mr. Schenck, whose group distributes stone tablets of the Ten Commandments for display in public offices nationwide, has designated Wednesday as “National T-Day.” Wednesday was selected to mark the U.S. Supreme Court's Nov. 17, 1980, decision in a Kentucky case to ban the reading of the Ten Commandments in public schools.
Growing trend
Communities nationwide are debating whether displaying the Old Testament laws violates the separation of church and state.
In Harrisburg, Ill., last month, the local school board voted to post the commandments in its schools. Also last month, a Kentucky General Assembly subcommittee unofficially approved a bill that could put the commandments on Kentucky school walls. And several Kentucky counties this year have proposed displaying the commandments in courthouses.
In February, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Adams County-Ohio Valley school board in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati for displaying the commandments at four Adams County high schools.
Putting the Ten Commandments back in schools could help prevent violence, the Rev. Mr. Schenck suggested.
“Had Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, students at Columbine High School, grown up in a school where they could have glanced up from time to time to read the words, "Thou Shalt Not Kill,'” said the Rev. Mr. Schenck, “Had they read those timeless words over and over again, perhaps — just perhaps — their consciences would have been enlightened and their lives and the lives of 13 of their classmates may have been saved.”
Shirts cost $15
The Rev. Mr. Schenck was invited to speak in Hamilton by the Christian center's senior pastor, Rev. Johnny Wade Sloan. The Rev. Mr. Sloan was present when the Rev. Mr. Schenck kicked off his “T-Day” crusade in July in Washington.
At Sunday's rally, students could buy T-shirts with the Ten Commandments for $15. Kim Mack, a ninth-grade teacher at Garfield Junior High School, called displaying the commandments “So necessary.”
“On Wednesday, somebody might have a problem with my T-shirt, but I'm going to wear my T-shirt to show that I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” she said.
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