It would have played out very similarly to what it did because declarations of divine or 'inerrant' ideology don't convince anyone. And you can't make people follow them when they don't accept them; not without brute force. And even that won't succeed in the end. All that happens is a lot of unnecessary suffering.
Why would anyone do that? Especially a public representative. I still can't figure out why so many atheists feel the need to run around telling us all what they DON'T believe. Why would anyone care what they don't believe? Why would they think anyone else would care? It makes no sense. It's the old; "whatever it is, I'm AGIN IT!" meme.
The playing field of ideas is never level. Culture is always going to be a collection of biases. A healthy culture will be aware of that, however, and therefor able to re-assess itself and adapt to achieve better results.
Of course these questions need to be considered. But what matters more are the ethical imperatives being used to determine the answers. Is better really better? How do we tell? And it's better for whom? And why them? Better compared to what other oprions? "God says so" or "it's the law!" or "my tribe believes ..." doesn't teach anyone anything. And it's why this kind of morality doesn't work. It keeps people blind and stupid. But it's still better than nothing at all.
We are running out of time. Science has finally given us the ability to annihilate ourselves, entirely. The proverbial loaded pistols are in the monkey's cage, now. And sooner or late one of those monkeys is going to pick one of those pistols up and start shooting it because he just doesn't know any better. And there is nothing in our culture that is currently helping us recognize and understand why we should not pick up those pistols, or let anyone else pick them up. Instead, some fool yells "WAR!" and a thousand more fools grab their guns and run to the fight. Even though death and destruction is all that ever results from it.
We are so ethically and morally blind that we think warfare is a good course of action. This has to change. And it's not just the violence of warfare, itself. It's the violence of political oppression, and the violence of economic oppression, and the violence of hopelessness and meaninglessness and of fundamental neglect.
They lie and deceive children because they know they can't lie and deceive most adults.
I'll let your comments be final closing arguments. We can leave it in the hands of the jury to decide.