Statues VS Statutes

The Second of the Ten Commandments reads:  “You shall not make a carved image [a graven image] for yourself nor the likeness of anything in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.  You shall not bow down and worship them….(Exodus 20:4-5).”  Statues are “graven images” made in the likeness of a person or an animal.  A statue is normally life-size or larger than life.  The Statue of Liberty, for example, is 305 feet high; the Statue of Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial is 19 feet high.  A statue may be made of plaster, wood, marble, cloth, or metal.  

The Second Commandment’s “shall not” has not prevented us from making graven images and has not stopped us from coming “just short” of idolizing some of those graven images (statues).  What bothers me even more than the second commandment about statues, however, is what Tommy Douglas (Canadian Baptist minister and politician—considered the father of socialized medicine in Canada) said about them.  “I don’t mind being a symbol but I don’t want to become a monument.  There are monuments all over the Parliament Buildings and I’ve seen what the pigeons do to them.”

Now a statue is not a “Statute.”  A “Statute” is a law—a physical document that expresses the law of the land as enacted by a legislative body.  The United States Constitution is a “Statute.”  It may have been a monumental effort to create and it may be  seen today as a monumental document—BUT, the Constitution (the law of the land) is not a monument—it is not a statue—IT IS A STATUTE.

There are those who want some “statues” taken down, finding them offensive and divisive rather than unifying.  There are others who feel that removing some of these statues is criminal. Donald Trump just signed an executive order “to prosecute to the fullest extent…any person or any entity that destroys, damages, vandalizes, or desecrates a monument, memorial, or statue within the US…”

Would that an executive order be signed today “to prosecute to the fullest extent…any person or any entity that destroys, damages, vandalizes, or desecrates the Statute of the Constitution of the United States,” particularly, the First Amendment (the rights to assemble, protest, and petition).  There are justifiable reasons to seek redress and those exercising that right are not predominantly “rioters, arsonists, and left-wing extremists.”  We can tolerate what pigeons do to statues, but we cannot allow pigeons to do the same to our founding Statute!