CNS News - Ten Commandments Display in Maryland Park Challenged

January 18, 2005
Melanie Hunter
Deputy Managing Editor

(CNSNews.com) - A legal group that specializes in constitutional law is representing a group defending the display of the Ten Commandments in a park in Frederick, Md.

The monument was donated to the city in 1958 and originally stood outside city hall, but it was later moved to a city park where it was displayed along with war memorials, a George Washington plaque, and other markers of local historical significance.

The American Center for Law and Justice said Tuesday's trial underway in U.S. District Court in Baltimore regarding the challenge to a Fraternal Order of Eagles monument of the Ten Commandments is "an important case" regarding a "monument that has been part of the fabric of this community for nearly 50 years."

"Many courts have recognized that the Commandments displayed in conjunction with other historical documents are constitutionally appropriate and does not violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution," said Francis J. Manion, senior counsel of the ACLJ, who is representing the Eagles at trial.

"It is our hope to convince the court that the monument in Frederick merely reflects the acknowledgement that the Commandments served as a basis for western law and have played an important role in the development of our legal system," Manion said.

The ACLU first filed suit challenging the monument in 2002. The city sold it and the parcel of land on which it stood to the Eagles. The ACLU dropped its suit, but in June 2003 Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed a suit challenging the validity of the sale.

A federal appeals court earlier this month upheld the constitutionality of such a display in a case involving the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin which sold its monument and the land it sits on to the Eagles.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that the sale of the monument and land to the Eagles was "constitutionally appropriate." The ACLJ represents the Eagles in that case as well.

The ACLJ, which is defending the public display of Commandments in communities across America, has several cases pending at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The legal group has asked the high court to hear two cases from Ohio concerning Ten Commandments displays and is filing amicus briefs with the high court in two other Commandments cases that will be heard this term.