Imagine that you're a liberal-minded South Carolina state senator. Your Republican colleagues, in an incomprehensible zeal to require schools to display the Ten Commandments, have proposed a bill that would mandate a "Foundations of American Law and Government" display that would include the Commandments, Hammurabi's Code, and a few other assorted things intended to dilute the religious message of the Commandments and thus pass Constitutional muster. You know that, while the display is a pointless waste of time and effort, it is also Constitutional. You also know that in a heavily Republican legislature, you're not defeating the bill. What do you do?
Well, if you are like Orangeburg's Brad Hutto and in possession of sizable quantities of awesome, you propose an amendment adding the Lord's Prayer to the display. You guarantee that the display is now so blatantly religious as to be ruled unconstitutional. You also know that the amendment is going to get passed because South Carolina voters will punish your colleagues for voting against the Lord's Prayer. (Which says a great deal about our neighbors in the Palmetto State.) So you've effectively killed the mandate.
Mr. Hutto, you win.
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