Zion Illinois water tower and all cop cars sewer trucks et cetera were emblazoned : " god REIGNS " AND my buddy Rob Sherman forced the city in federal court to remove it all

Well, the thing is believers are convinced the Ten Commandments are a religious thing.

How are these words not an open injunction by the city to practice a particular set of beliefs when displayed and maintained by Santa Fe? (From Exodus 20)

3 You shall have no other gods before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

Verse 3 is against non-Abrahamic practice. Verse 4 is against all forms of animism. Verse 5 is a threat of divine punishment for such animism. Verse 6 is a statement of supernatural privilege to believers. Verse 7 is an anti-blasphemy law.

Each verse is highly problematic in a secular federation; v3-4 are explicitly anti-pluralistic, v5-6 are open religious discrimination, and v7 is anti-secular—particularly anti-free speech. None of these are part of our founding intellectual past (i.e. "Judeo-Christian influences" ), so it is a false historical narrative the monument represents, in my opinion, as far as what our government was designed to stand for. All five verses are thoroughly rejected by the First Amendment. These are only the more egregious verses, with some others still being problematic.

The monument is a statement which directly conflicts with the constitution of the US. There should be no place in which an American government entity displays something which people interpret as a "higher law" or "God's law" when that "law" is directly opposed to the agreed upon and functioning law of the land: the US Federal Constitution. It makes absolutely no sense!

@Rhetoric -- The monument is neither an injunction nor an endorsement by the City to practice anything contained in the monument. Similar to a statue in the middle of a city showing a guy riding a horse. Is it an injunction or endorsement by the City that we should all be riding horses? Nope. It's just a paean; a memorial to our past.

This is not running afoul of the First Amendment; the City is not establishing a religion.

One might ask, "why do they not put up a statue of Buddha in the town square?" -- probably because Buddhism is not a prominent part of America's past.

@DUCHESSA -- yes; obviously, the Ten Commandments are a religious thing. Everybody knows this. But it's not an official endorsement of religion by the City - it's a monument. See my response to Rhetoric above.

The problem Doug is that all throughout history some people have used religion to do bad things. It continues today. Without brave people like the FFRF, we would still be living with forced religion. Divisive monuments belong in private museums, not taxpayer funded property.

go to their website and sign up .. [ffrf.org]

Just think what we could do if all the secular people united. The oppressed non-christian religious people are in this battle also.