Thompson: Let's put commandments in politics

As is perfectly legal under a 2006 state law, Madison County commissioners last week accepted a donation from state Sen. Ralph Hudgens, R-Hull - who, not coincidentally, is running for state insurance commissioner - of a set of historical documents including the Ten Commandments.

The vote made Madison County the 12th of Georgia's 159 counties to take advantage of the law, which allows the display of a group of documents known collectively under the statute as the Foundations of American Law and Government. The documents, which the law says must be of equal size and identically framed, are the Mayflower Compact, the Ten Commandments, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, lyrics of the "The Star-Spangled Banner," the national motto, the preamble to the Georgia Constitution, the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, and a description of the image of Lady Justice.

Of course, the unspoken reality here is that the Foundations display is nothing more than a cynical government-sanctioned ruse to get past the constitutional principle of separation of church and state in order to post the Ten Commandments in government buildings. The bill got through the legislature with wide bipartisan support because, well, who's going to vote against the Almighty?

And, to put it plainly, those who actually might value the Constitution are stuck with the law.

But a thought does occur: If, as its proponents in elected office insist, the Ten Commandments are a foundational document for American law and government, and they are a part of that government, shouldn't they be required to demonstrate their level of commitment to observing the commandments, and shouldn't they face the possibility of some political sanction when they fall short?

One way that might work is to set up a special division of the State Ethics Commission to hear cases brought by citizens who believe an elected official who's voted in support of a Ten Commandments display has run afoul of one or more of its provisions.

Campaigning on Sunday? Sounds like a clear violation of No. 4 there, Sen. Phogbound. Tha

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