There were two stories of horrific murders committed against children last week. Both managed to make front-page news.

One incident occurred in Detroit where a father allegedly shot his four children ranging in ages from 1-9 and then set their home on fire in an attempt to cover his tracks. Only the nine-year old survived.

The second incident occurred in my home state, New Jersey.

A mother was charged with murder after punching and kicking her 14-year old son to death. Two days later the same newspaper reported on its front page that fatal child abuse is rising in New Jersey. Last year, 24 children died from abuse or neglect.

For those wondering why crimes against children are on the rise, consider, the front page of the August 21, USA Today: "10 Commandments appeal fails."

What does Alabama's Chief Justice's fight to keep a granite monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of his courthouse have to do with these heinous acts of violence by parents against their own flesh and blood? Everything.

The desire of a few deranged atheists to cleanse every vestige of Christianity-it's not religion, mind you-from America's public landscape isn't the issue. What is the crux of the matter is that their cause is championed by lawyers with too much free time on their hands who are then aided and abetted by tyrants in black robes in courtrooms across this country.

And that is a reflection of the heart and the soul of America.

But God is a gentleman. He doesn't impose Himself on anyone. When asked to leave, He graciously obliges, but be warned of the consequences.

For centuries, religious freedom in America was dictated by the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]." Foam-at-the-mouth secularists began to get their way in the courts in the latter half of the 20th century when a suddenly enlightened Supreme Court discovered the Establishment Clause and used it consistently to guarantee freedom from religion.

One of the more egregious of these opinions was rendered in the 1980 decision of Stone v. Graham, which forbade the posting of the Ten Commandments on the walls of public school buildings. The justices wrote, "If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey [them]. This is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause."

Alexander Hamilton addressed the possibility of judicial tyranny in Federalist 81, answering the charge that "[t]he power of construing the laws according to the SPIRIT of the Constitution, will enable [the Supreme Court] to mould them into whatever shape it may think proper…[making] the errors and usurpations of the Supreme Court of the United States…uncontrollable and remediless."

He concluded, "judiciary encroachments… [and] particular misconstructions and contraventions of the will of the legislature may now and then happen; but they can never be so extensive as to amount to an inconvenience, or in any sensible degree to affect the order of the political system."

Hamilton was only a political leader, and he vastly underestimated the potential for the culture to influence the judiciary two centuries later.

Another great leader named Isaiah was a prophet. Unlike Hamilton, he was able to look into the future and make accurate predictions about the culture's influence on society.

He warned: "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness… Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!"

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; [email protected]. Visit our website at www.amyfound.org.