U.S. Courts uphold order to remove Ten Commandments displays in Kentucky
5 June 2000 (Newsroom) — Two United States courts have upheld judicial orders to remove wall displays with the Ten Commandments from a public school district and two county courthouses in Kentucky. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and a U.S. District Court denied motions to stay the preliminary injunctions issued last month by federal judge Jennifer B. Coffman.
The judge argued that the displays endorsed religion in violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which forbids government establishment of a particular faith.
This spring, Kentucky joined Indiana and South Dakota in passing legislation that permits the posting of the Ten Commandments in public buildings. Nine other states have considered similar action.
State officials in Kentucky’s Harlan, McCreary, and Pulaski counties have removed wall displays to comply with Judge Coffman’s orders. Members of a local American Legion post took the documents out of the courthouse in McCreary County where Judge-Executive Jimmie W. Greene had publicly vowed either to resign or go to jail before he would remove the Ten Commandments, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported. School officials in Harlan County removed the documents from their school district’s classrooms, but as a symbolic gesture they plan to hang empty picture frames on the walls, according to the paper. The display in the Pulaski County courthouse was dismantled with little ceremony.
In each case an appeal still is pending in the Sixth Circuit, though attorneys for the defense have withdrawn. The conservative Liberty Counsel, based in Orlando, Florida, is taking over at the behest of the defendants and may pull the appeals filed by the former attorneys, said president and general counsel Mathew Staver. “Our real goal is to take the case to trial and present a solid defense,” he said. “… Even if we pursue the appeal, we will still go through with the trial.”
Staver said Liberty Counsel’s arguments will differ somewhat from the strategy previously employed by defense attorneys. The most obvious difference in approach will center on the context in which the Ten Commandments is displayed.
State officials in the three eastern Kentucky counties created the nearly identical displays in an attempt to comply with the law after the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky filed suit last November over the posting of the Ten Commandments by itself. Among the documents added to the Commandments display were the Mayflower Compact, the national motto “In God We Trust,” the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, a proclamation issued by President Ronald Reagan declaring 1983 the Year of the Bible, and an 1863 proclamation made by President Abraham Lincoln designating a National Day of Prayer and Humiliation. In the Harlan County schools, the Ten Commandments appeared as printed in the Congressional Record.
The defendants argued that the displays were historical in nature, but Judge Coffman pointed out in her orders that all of the documents highlighted some aspect of religion.
Staver contended that the displays were problematic in that the historical documents surrounding the Ten Commandments were “excerpted and the context was not always clear.” “We will display other documents so that the context is clearly understood,” he explained, citing as an example the Supreme Court wall panels depicting Moses with the Ten Commandments situated among other lawgivers.
Staver said he is uncertain how the Kentucky displays will be altered. Liberty Counsel is conducting research on current American jurisprudence, he added.
ACLU Kentucky’s general counsel David Friedman similarly argued that the legality of posting the Ten Commandments in public buildings seemed to hinge on the context in which the Commandments are exhibited. “It’s conceivable that one could lawfully for some time period have the Ten Commandments on the walls,” he said.
Charles Haynes of Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tennessee, noted, however, that Judge Coffman’s preliminary injunctions suggest the courts will be difficult to predict. In the Kentucky cases, said Friedman, whether the defense can present a new display that will pass constitutional muster remains “an open question.”
In 1980, the Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky statute mandating that the Ten Commandments be posted in public schools. The court argued in Stone v. Graham that “[t]he Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text” but allowed for the Commandments to be “integrated into the school curriculum, where the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like.”
Observers of what many call a Ten Commandments movement claim the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado last April catalyzed the legislative efforts that have taken place in a dozen states so far.
Maneuvering by the opposition is under way, however. On May 18, the ACLU’s Indiana affiliate (ICLU) challenged that state’s legislation in U.S. District Court after the governor announced plans to place a monument on capitol grounds inscribed with the Ten Commandments, the Bill of Rights, and the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
ICLU executive director John Krull called the monument an “affront to the Establishment Clause,” forbidding state establishment of religion. “It’s saying the Ten Commandments are one of the three ordering documents of American life,” he argued. Krull pointed out that the monument depicts the Protestant version of the Commandments, contending that any time the state begins making such theological determinations it is out of bounds. Still, Krull conceded, there was a permissible way to display the Commandments: “The Supreme Court has said there’s a constitutional way; obviously, no one’s found it yet.”
The ACLU of the Dakotas said it will challenge South Dakota’s legislation — which applies only to public schools — as school districts begin posting the Ten Commandments. ACLU Kentucky’s Friedman told Newsroom his organization will file suit over a portion of the Kentucky legislation mandating a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments be placed on capitol grounds as “part of a historical and cultural display.” He said the ACLU will take action before July 15, when the law takes effect.
Copyright © 2000 Newsroom.
Used with permission.