A divided Supreme Court on Monday struck down Ten Commandments displays in two Kentucky courthouses, but said a 6-foot granite replica on government land in Texas was acceptable.I don't think anyone will be satisfied by this result. I think most of us would like to see the court decide one way or the other and be done with it, rather than approach these things one case at a time. Given that the court has stated that you can't have Ten Commandment displays in courthouses (at least in Kentucky), does this mean they'll have to order the sandblasting of their own building, which contains several references to the Ten Commandments etched into the stone?
In the first ruling, McCreary County v. ACLU (search), the court said that the Kentucky displays violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits government from endorsing or supporting one religion above others.
The justices ruled split 5-4 that the Ten Commandments (search) could not be displayed in court buildings or on government property. However, the Biblical laws could be displayed in an historical context, as they are in a frieze in the Supreme Court building. Notably, the first four commandments, which have to do with honoring God and the Sabbath, were obscured by the artist who designed the frieze.
"The touchstone for our analysis is the principle that the First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion," Justice David H. Souter wrote for the majority.
"When the government acts with the ostensible and predominant purpose of advancing religion, it violates that central Establishment clause value of official religious neutrality," he said.
Souter was joined in his opinion by other members of the liberal bloc — Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, as well as Reagan appointee Sandra Day O'Connor, who provided the swing vote.
In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that Ten Commandments displays are a legitimate tribute to the nation's religious and legal history.
"In the court's view , the impermissible motive was apparent from the initial displays of the Ten Commandments all by themselves: When that occurs: the Court says, a religious object is unmistakable," he wrote. "Surely that cannot be."
"The Commandments have a proper place in our civil history," Scalia wrote. He was joined in his opinion by Chief William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justice Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
The Kentucky displays have been the target of litigation since they were first posted in 1999. With each lower court ruling against county officials, revisions were made to the displays. By the time the case landed on the Supreme Court's docket, the framed copies of the commandments were part of a larger, more neutral display about the history of American law.
Scalia wrote in his dissent that the changed displays were constitutionally acceptable.
Along the way, county officials passed a resolution declaring that American law was derived from the Ten Commandments. While revisions were made to the displays, that resolution was left intact.
In the resolution, county officials declared: "The judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction."
Monday's rulings were perhaps the court's most highly anticipated of the 2004 session. The court has not visited the hotly contested issue since 1980, when religious displays in public schools were ruled unconstitutional.
The other Ten Commandments case, Van Orden v. Perry (search), involved a statue donated to the government and placed on grounds outside the state capitol.
All the more reason why the upcoming confirmation battles (if there's a retirement) will be critically important, and will probably make the Bork and Thomas hearings look like pillowfights.
UPDATE: Scrappleface has his unique take on the recent court decisions.
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