M.L. Nestel joined Raw Story in 2023. An award-winning writer and editor, his work has been published in New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and The Guardian, among other titles. He also produces and writes for true-crime genre TV shows. Prior to that, he served on the Newsweek masthead as a senior writer, wrote as a correspondent at ABC News and held the titles of West Coast bureau chief and senior writer at The Daily Beast. Priors also include working as senior national correspondent at The Daily Mail and investigative reporter at all three NYC tabloids: The New York Post,The New York Daily News and Newsday. He traveled around the country as a national correspondent at The Daily. M.L. published hundreds of stories about underground music and cinema — most notably as a critic for Box Office Magazine and the New York editor at Soma Magazine. He also headed development at Fountainhead Films. M.L. splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.
During a cerebral exchange with retired Dr. Ben Carson about the purpose of displaying the Ten Commandments in U.S. schools, CNN's Abby Phillip presented a tricky hypothetical.
Phillip asked: "I'm saying that the Ten Commandments comes from your religious belief in the Christian Bible... would you be comfortable, for example, with a public school hanging the five pillars of Islam in a classroom?"
"I wouldn't have any problem with that if that's what the people wanted," Carson told her.
He appeared compelled to push the values of the Ten Commandments to be universal tenets — well beyond their religious provenance.
"Can you tell me what is wrong with 'Thou shall not kill', 'Thou shall not steal', 'Thou shall not lie', 'Thou not envy... just explain to me what's wrong with those things," he asked Phillip.
She answered, "There is absolutely nothing wrong with those things."
Carson broke in, "So why wouldn't we want to teach our children those things?"
But Phillip explained: "I think the issue at hand is a legal one."
"My point is, Dr. Carson, a lot of people would and do disagree with you that the idea that the founding fathers believe that the government should be putting its thumb on the scale for any particular religion versus saying to whoever has a religion they can exercise that however way they want," Phillip challenged him.
And he responded to her question with a question of his own.
"But are you saying that the Ten Commandments are a religion?"
Phillip clarified.
"I'm saying that the Ten Commandments comes from your religious belief in the Christian Bible."
