Don't be a fool, John Hardly. The tubes were installed by doctors following orders from within both the executive hierarchy and the judicial system. Those orders were repeatedly found to have been unconstitutional (and therefore illegal) by later courts. Just as a cop who follows a right-wing nutcase's orders is not necessarily a right-wing nutcase himself, so a doctor following a court order is not necessarily in agreement with the court.

While the attempts to keep Sciavo alive were at first motivated only by the parents' litigation, as you have seen over the last few weeks, it had been made into a political issue, for precisely the reason I stated: it forced the left to advocate killing this woman. (Unless you actually think Tom DeLay gives a damn about her, which would make you pretty naive, I think.)

And as to the Ten Commandments issue, it's true that the display is no longer in the courthouse. But there is still a movement to replace it, and the case is in fact going before the Supreme Court. Not because it naturally would do so, but because there is a significant MOVEMENT expending a great deal of effort and money to get the ten commandments displayed on Public property.

Your claim that "nobody is suing to get more Ten Commandments displays erected in government buildings." is true but it is meaningless. No-one has to "sue" to get a display on public property; in fact, that is almost never the way this would get done. It would get done by a campagin followed by a vote in the legislature. And these campaigns and votes in the legislature are in fact happening all over the country.

The reason SUITS are used to REMOVE the displays is that the essential argument is that the displays are unconstitutional. You establish that in the courts, not in the legislature. A suit could not be used to PUT a display on public property unless you were arguing that it were illegal NOT to have it, which everyone knows is not the case with the ten commandments.

So your statement about suing is irrelevant. The fact is there are significant campaigns all over the place aimed at putting religious displays on public property, and they often succeed. The fact that a few of the lawsuits aimed at getting rid of the lawsuits ALSO succeed is not evidence that we're moving away from religious oppression, much as you would like to think so.

This from Salon.com, coincidentally posted there today:

"Since 2003, the movement to display the Ten Commandments on government property has spread faster than SARS on an Asian chicken farm. One Indiana county cleverly displayed the Decalogue as a historical document alongside other such documents, and on March 29 of this year the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld its right to do so. The day before, the Mississippi Senate had voted to display the Ten Commandments in all public buildings.

The Moore case has been taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court. "