Knight Ridder/Tribune News - Both Sides Find Something to Cheer About in Commandments Decisions

June 27, 2005
BY EMMA BURGIN AND CARA SPAZIANI
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Officials on both sides of the religious freedom debate could claim at least a small victory Monday after the Supreme Court handed down a split decision about displaying the Ten Commandments on government property.

The court voted 5-4 to allow an antique monument of the Ten Commandments to remain outside the Texas state capital while ordering two Kentucky county courthouses to remove similar displays.

"With this ruling we believe the court upheld the separation of church and state," said Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches. "We believe the people ought to live through the Ten Commandments and they don't have be ... displayed in any official way."

There are thousands of monuments dedicated to the Ten Commandments across the country. Most were erected by the Fraternal Order of Eagles or used to promote the 1956 movie, "The Ten Commandments."

"It is very important that the Supreme Court understands the historical and legal significance of displaying the Ten Commandments and moved to protect thousands of monuments now in place across America," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice in Washington.

The Texas monument was privately funded in 1961 and placed in front of the state legislature in Austin. Two Kentucky courthouses put up privately funded monuments, prompting court cases that strove to define the separation between church and state.

"(The Commandments are) part of American law, culture, heritage and history," said Mathew Staver, president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom.

"It makes no constitutional sense to have one display because we don't know why it was posted, and to have another one right across the street taken down because of someone's subjective motivation."

Staver, who argued for the displays in front of the Supreme Court in March, said he intends to take the case back to the trial level. The Liberty Counsel has stated that the decision against the Ten Commandments display could impede the fight for religious freedom.

But the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the monuments promote Christianity and Judaism as dominant religions. He added that his organization plans to rekindle five court cases dealing with similar issues of separation of church and state.

"Fighters go to a different gym and that's what we're going to do," he said. "We're going to continue filing cases where it's appropriate."

The Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, also commended the Supreme Court's ruling in Kentucky. He said had the decision gone the other way, people would have asked the government to depict Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu symbols, further jeopardizing the separation of church and state.

"We're trying to live peacefully in a radically divided institution."