Monroe County, TN Advocate - Supreme Court to Consider Commandments Cases

By: TOMMY MILLSAPS
January 27, 2005

The oral arguments in two Ten Commandment cases that could affect Monroe Countys court battle with the American Civil Liberties Union are scheduled to be heard by the United States Supreme Court beginning March 2.

We are waiting on that day, said American Center for Law and Justice lead counsel Francis Manion, one of the attorneys representing the county in its court battle with the ACLU.

But according to Manion, it could be as late as June, the end of the courts current term, before the justices render a decision on the Texas and Kentucky Ten Commandments cases, which are somewhat similar to the Monroe County case.

Manion said there is simply no way to know when and how the nations highest court will rule but one thing is for sure, the entire country will be watching to see how the justices rule on whether or not the Ten Commandments can be displayed in public buildings and government property.

They are pretty sharply divided on these issues, he said. Chief Justice William Rehnquist is battling cancer and appeared frail at the recent presidential inauguration. But Manion expects the chief justice will want to weigh in on this important matter when it comes time to render a decision.

Monroe County and the ACLU have taken a winding road to get to this point in the year since the case first began. The ACLU, representing Knoxville attorney Kelly O.

Herston, filed suit in federal court against the county government last January, seeking to force the removal of a Ten Commandments display that for now hangs outside County Mayor Allan Watsons first-floor office in the Monroe County Courthouse.

Herston says he is offended by what he calls the countys establishment of one religion by displaying the Christian Ten Commandments.

Last June, Judge Thomas A. Varlan ruled against the countys motions to dismiss case, which contended the plaintiff had tried very few cases in the county courthouse and therefore lacked standing to sue over the Ten Commandments display.

The county and its attorneys later proposed a comprise that would have allowed the Ten Commandments to hang in the courthouse as part of a historical display with other documents but the two sides could not reach an agreement on the countys offer.

Last fall, the Supreme Court announced it would finally hear cases concerning the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments in public buildings and Judge Thomas put Monroe Countys case on hold awaiting the Supreme Courts ruling in Texas and Kentucky cases this year.

The nations highest court had repeatedly refused to consider such cases since its 1980 ruling, which outlawed the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

Since that decision, lower courts have often had to make rulings on whether the Ten Commandments can be posted in courthouses, city halls, state capitols and other public buildings.

The rulings by lower courts have often been different, sometimes allowing Ten Commandments displays and sometimes not.

In the Texas case, a homeless man originally lost his lawsuit seeking to have a granite Ten Commandments monument removed from the state capitol grounds, according to published reports.

The Kentucky case involves framed displays of the Ten Commandments hung in the courthouses in McCreary and Pulaski counties.

Courts have ordered those displays removed twice, according to the USA Today.