Minnesota man urges school district to erect his Nine Commandments monument

Dennis Dodge, who can't count, wants the Park Rapids School Board to put up his donated Christian display

This newsletter is free, but it’s only able to sustain itself due to the support I receive from a small percentage of regular readers. Would you please consider becoming one of those supporters? You can use the button below to subscribe to Substack or use my usual Patreon page!

---

Update: On Monday, June 3, the Park Rapids School Board unanimously voted to reject the Nine Commandments monument. The board members cited the overwhelming disapproval from the community as well as the potential for legal problems.

---

While some states like Louisiana are about to require public schools to post the Ten Commandments in every classroom, one delusional man in Minnesota is taking a more local approach in forcing his faith on others.

On Monday, Dennis Dodge appeared in front of the Park Rapids School Board to make a case to put a Ten Commandments monument on school grounds after it completes a renovation by fall of 2025.

Dodge knows the board well since he sat on it for 32 years, until 2022, so he felt comfortable telling his former colleagues why they needed to promote his personal God:

In his presentation, Dodge argued that current society is in a war between good and evil, and “Satan seems to be winning because we are allowing him to,” by allowing God to be pushed out of government, churches, homes and schools.

“Our society has lost its moral compass, its values and its respect for each other,” he said, adding that “if we can save even one child from Satan’s grapes, it is worth every cent we spend on this donation, because God’s children are priceless.”

Some people fear school shootings. This guy worries about “Satan’s grapes.”

(Update: A commenter suggested he meant Satan’s “grasp” and the newspaper transcribed it incorrectly. That would make sense. But it’s not nearly as entertaining.)

Dodge appeared to know that there might be legal problems with his plan because he acknowledged prior Supreme Court rulings during his presentation.

In short, the Court has said in the past that a stand-alone Ten Commandments monument on public property is obviously an illegal promotion of religion while a broader display that includes the Ten Commandments is probably fine. Separately, the Court said in 1980 that a law requiring schools to post a copy of the Ten Commandments in classrooms was illegal because it lacked any secular purpose.

But, bizarrely, Dodge said none of those precedents applied in his situation because he wasn’t trying to win converts.

According to a Voice of America article that Dodge attached to a copy of his presentation, the U.S. Supreme Court “permits the 10 Commandments to be on public property so long as the goal of displaying them is not to gain support for religion.”

He seriously argued that he’s not trying to gain support for Christianity; he just wants God to defeat Satan. See? Not religious at all.

It probably doesn’t help his case that a design of the monument he wants to donate says, on the back, “We must put God back into our educational system before we lose our children and this great nation.”

That’s not the most ridiculous part about the design, though.

That honor goes to the front of the monument… which only lists nine Commandments.

The missing Commandment is either the one about not worshiping false idols or not bearing false witness against your neighbors, depending on how you choose to count. Still, it’s hilarious that Dodge didn’t even bother looking at his own damn design and overlooked something so obvious.

If he can’t be expected to read the front of the monument, why the hell does he think students would?

In a letter to the school district, the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Patrick O’Reily Legal Fellow Hirsh Joshi is warning officials not to allow this proposal to go anywhere.

“It should be obvious to anyone that the First Commandment alone — ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’ — is the antithesis of our First Amendment, which, by the way, is one of the principles that truly makes America great,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The Park Rapids Area Schools has no business telling students which gods to have, how many gods to have or whether to have any gods at all.”

Referring to the missing Commandment, Joshi jokes, “The monument sends the message that school children don’t need to learn how to count.”

For now, the board hasn’t made any decision. Board Chair Sherry Safratowich said at the meeting that they would need to discuss the issue more before taking any sort of vote on the matter:

“What I’m looking for is information from folks in the community,” she said. “I know how I feel, but I’m only one person.”

That’s… not encouraging. The correct answer would have been to laugh Dodge out of the building and reject his idea without hesitation. It’s not just illegal; even if there were no legal obstacles, this still wouldn’t be a good idea. The Commandments serve no useful purpose when dealing with the very real issues confronting students today.

The students need a decent education. Hopefully one that includes a basic understanding of the Constitution—something Dodge clearly doesn’t value.

What they don’t need is a reminder of archaic rules about not obeying the Christian God, not working on the Sabbath, not committing adultery, or not committing adultery again (with the neighbor’s wife).

---