Quote from video interview: Laureen Ventrella, Louisiana State Representative. “What is important to remember is that whether we like it or not, Moses is in the Supreme Court of the United States, the Ten Commandments are in the Supreme Court of the United States, Moses is on the law in Congress. This is part and ingrained in our nation. This [the Ten Commandments] is a historical document.”

Well folks, Ms. High and Mighty Angry Ventrella, is wrong, wrong, wrong. As they say, let’s unpack this.

First, the Supreme Court did not have its own building until 1935 – the 146th year of its existence. Until 1935, the Supreme Court justices did their work in borrowed rooms (including a private home).

Cass Gilbert was the architect of the Supreme Court building. Gilbert’s design included friezes (sculptures) on the inside and the outside of the new Supreme Court building. However, the sculptors were free to choose their own subjects and symbols and design their own sculptures.

Inside and directly above the Justice’s bench, the sculptor and German immigrant, Adolf Weinman, designed a frieze with symbolic figures representing The Majesty of Law and The Power of Government in the center. In between these two figures, the Bill of Rights is (aka the ten amendments) is depicted on a pylon with Roman numerals (1-X). Obviously, Ventrella has mistaken a pylon for a tablet and is not familiar with the Bill of Rights.

Moving to the south wall frieze (to the left of the justices’ bench). In this frieze Weinman depicted the world’s great lawmakers Confucius, Hammurabi, Menes, Solomon, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Octavian and Moses. Let’s unpack the Moses figure more closely.

In the frieze, Mosaic Law (from the Torah) is depicted with two tablets written in Hebrew (which is written and read from right to left). However, the first five Commandments are completely hidden behind Moses’ beard and robe. The reason is simple; the first five Commandments revolve around man’s relationship to G-d (in other words, these are Mosaic, or religious laws).

Commandments six through ten are only partially visible behind Moses’ beard. Once again, the reason is simple; in Mosaic Law, these are G-d’s commandments regarding our secular lives, or the relationships between people (don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal, don’t covet, and don’t kill each other).

Clearly, this depiction of Moses represents the Supreme Court’s duty to judge secular, or human matters based on constitutional law alone (and leave religious matters outside the court). Whether Laureen Ventrella likes it or not, American laws have never agreed with, upheld, or promoted these six commandments. In America lying, cheating, stealing, coveting and murder are legal for some citizens and illegal for other citizens.

Now, let’s go outside the Supreme Court building. On the east side of the building, the sculptor designed a frieze that depicts “Justice; The Guardian of Liberty”. In this frieze, the great Eastern Civilizations from which American law is derived are represented by three lawgivers – Confucius, Moses and Solon – and they are all holding a scroll or tablet on which laws were written in their time. This time the tablets Moses is holding are blank. To the right of the lawgivers, figures portray justice tempered by mercy. To the left, a figure portrays the means of enforcing the law, while another figure portrays the youth (and the carrying on of civilization through knowledge). Other figures represent enlightened judgement, the study of justice, and the pondering of judgement. And last but not least, the fable of the tortoise and the hare (which I think is an apt fable for the torturously, slow, plodding, stumbling progress of the American justice system).

Obviously, in 1935, the sculptors, architect and Justices were keenly aware of the profound influence that eastern cultures, especially Chinese culture, had on American founders’ formation of the Constitution and the establishment of the Supreme Court itself.