Landmark Ten Commandments Cases Heard Before Supreme Court -- Decision Due in June
For the first time in 25 years, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments defending the public displays of the Ten Commandments on government property, Wednesday, March 02, 2005.
For the first time in 25 years, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments defending the public displays of the Ten Commandments on government property, Wednesday, March 02, 2005.
The two landmark cases involve a large monument on the Texas Capitol grounds and two framed displays of the Decalogue in the Kentucky state courthouses.
While the decisions on the cases are not expected to be released for months, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia seemed to side with those in favor of the monuments as he heard arguments from both sides.
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Noting legislative proclamations invoking God’s name are permissible, Scalia commented, “I don’t see why the one is good and the other is bad.”
In the Texas case, a homeless man named Thomas Van Orden argued that a 6-foot granite monument of the Ten Commandments should be removed from state Capitol grounds. His lawyer, Erwin Chemerinsky, told the justices the display is a “religious symbol” and that it’s prominence on the capitol grounds violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
"The government's symbolic endorsement of religion is most obvious from the content of the monument itself. In large letters, the monument proclaims 'I AM the LORD thy God,’” said Chemerinsky, in his filing.
However, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who has been defending the monument since he took office in 2002, countered in his filing by noting that “Countless monuments, medallions, plaques, sculptures, seals, frescoes, and friezes — including, of course, the Supreme Court's own courtroom frieze — commemorate the Decalogue. Nothing in the Constitution requires these historic artifacts to be chiseled away or erased.”
Meanwhile in the second case, Mathew Staver, President and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel, defended two framed displays of the Ten Commandments at Kentucky state courthouses, noting the prominent roles the Decalogue played in the nation’s development.
“The Ten Commandments are a universally recognized symbol of law. A visitor to the United States Supreme Court cannot enter the very chambers where argument was heard without coming into contact with the Ten Commandments,” said Staver, in a statement released after the case. “They are engraved at the main entrance on the double wooden doors, and they also appear on the bronze gates which exit from either side. Inside the Court, the only written inscription of the numerous architectural depictions is the Decalogue in Hebrew text. The Ten Commandments are featured in the central position on this Court’s East Pediment.”
Staver explained that contrary to the arguments made by the opponents of the monuments, there is a difference between the acknowledgment of religion and the establishment of religion.
“Despite the fact that the Ten Commandments are uniquely embedded in our history and appear in the Kentucky courthouses in a Foundations of Law display, some would have the Court confuse an acknowledgment with an establishment of religion,” said Staver. “There is a critical difference between government acknowledgments of religion, which the Constitution permits, versus an establishment of religion, which the Constitution forbids.
“It is not surprising that in a Nation established by religious refugees, we find references to the divine in our songs, in our mottos, in our architecture and in our documents,” he continued. “To erase our history would eliminate the essence of this country – a Nation founded upon religious freedom, where we can acknowledge God and religion and where freedom of conscience is not trampled. If the Ten Commandments are unconstitutional, and if when government merely acknowledges religion, it thereby establishes it, then the sight of sandblasters will become common, and the rapid fire of merciless jackhammers will disturb our peace. Our Constitution was not intended to foster callous hostility toward religious expression.”
Over 4,000 monuments carrying the Ten Commandments are displayed in town squares, courthouses and other government-owned land across the nation. And while these cases strictly involve the Ten Commandments display, a broad ruling could potentially secure or endanger all religious symbols in public life, including the use of religious music in a school concert and the students’ recitation of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.”
More than 50 groups have filed "friend-of-the-court" briefs on the far-reaching case, including Faith and Action – one of several Christian groups that held prayer vigils outside the Supreme Court sidewalk for the outcomes of the cases.
Decisions on both cases are expected in June.
The Texas case is prominently nonreligious because it is one of 17 monuments in a 22-acre park; the lower court struck down the homeless man Oden’s challenge to the monuments. The Kentucky displays, meanwhile, were deemed unconstitutional at the 6th U.S. Circuilt Court of Appeals.
The cases are Van Orden v. Perry, 03-1500, and McCreary County v. ACLU, 03-1693.
