Now that Louisiana will be posting the Ten Commandments in public schools, what would the late Rob I. Sherman have to say about this certain religious intrusion? The gadfly surely wouldn’t like it.
Some may recall that Buffalo Grove resident Sherman was the bane of Wauconda, Waukegan, Zion and other communities, as he challenged the use of religious symbols in public places. From the 1980s until his death in 2016, Sherman was first in line when it came to threatening separation-of-church-and-state lawsuits.
He’d be having a field day with the Louisiana statute signed into law last week by Gov. Jeff Landry, requiring the Pelican State’s K-12 classrooms and public universities to prominently display the Ten Commandments. I’m not sure kindergartners know how to read at that age or interpret the religious canons that plenty of elected officials have broken over the years, perhaps even a few in Louisiana.
Seems it would be easier to print the Commandments on the side of half-pint milk cartons doled out for students’ breakfasts and lunches, like the pleas for missing kids that used to be all over milk cartons in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Especially as Landry and members of his Republican flock contend the Commandments have been missing from today’s American life, and want to inject religion into the state’s public schools.
“If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses,” Landry said, according to The Associated Press. I may have missed it, but I don’t believe the Ten Commandments are displayed in Chicago’s Trump Tower.
Atheist Sherman, who died when the private plane he was piloting crashed near Marengo, might even have denounced the tablets if they were exhibited at the privately owned Trump Tower. He was that kind of guy.
A bevy of civil liberties groups filed lawsuits this week objecting to Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law. If he were alive, I bet Sherman, who counted hosting a radio talk show as part of his atheistic proselytization, would be among them.
He was unafraid to seek redress when he thought the government had crossed the line of promoting religion. Sherman originally went after Zion in 1987, according to his obituary by retired News-Sun staff writer Frank Abderholden.
Sherman targeted the city’s seal, which also appeared on police patches and city street signs, because it included the phrase “God Reigns.” It was an apt description of Zion, which indeed had been founded by religious leader Alexander Dowie.
Zion officials defended the seal in federal court, arguing the city under evangelist Dowie was established in 1900 as a theocracy. A federal judge in Chicago ruled in 1990 the city seal represented an unconstitutional endorsement of a particular religion.
Such judicial rulings have been consistent over the decades, whether it be unspoken prayers, like the Illinois Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act of 2007, which Sherman challenged. Or, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980 striking down a Kentucky law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. On June 25, 1962, the Supreme Court ruled the use of non-denominational prayers in New York state public schools was unconstitutional.
Sherman wasn’t the only Illinoisan to defy attempts to allow religious education in public schools. Vashti Cromwell McCollum was the plaintiff in a landmark 1948 High Court ruling that struck down having religion classes in Downstate Champaign schools.
But success in Zion led Sherman to Wauconda in 1989, when he forced officials to remove lighted crosses from the tops of village water towers after threatening to sue. Waukegan was his next victim.
In 1994, he called on the City Council to remove a set of crucifixes from the city-owned Oakwood Cemetery on South Sheridan Road. He also protested a monument of the Ten Commandments once located in front of old City Hall, now police headquarters. The likeness was donated to the city in 1960 by the Waukegan Fraternal Order of Eagles.
Hinting at heading to federal court, the matter was dropped after Waukegan officials admitted, “the City of Waukegan has the obligation not to promote religion, but at the same time it must protect religion.” The last the Ten Commandments statue was seen, it was sequestered in a dark corner of the Public Works barn on North McAree Road. It may still be there.
The final Lake County lawsuit in which Sherman was involved was once again aimed at Zion. Former City Commissioner Shantal Taylor used an old city seal with a large cross in an advertisement for a community meeting planned for City Hall, which he felt violated the earlier city-seal lawsuit.
Sherman always turned to the First Amendment during his journeys to stop religion from seeping into public displays: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Fairly succinct and, like protection of free speech and assembly, sewn into our national fabric.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
Twitter: @sellenews
