Thus saith the ACLU: Thou shalt not post
Judge questions intent, nixes Ten Commandments display
by Richard Nelson

In an age where absolutes are regularly disdained by secularists, it is ironic that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is absolutely certain of one thing when it comes to displaying the Ten Commandments in public places: Thou shalt not post. 

Call it their Eleventh Commandment.

Exactly where ACLU prophets received this revelation is unknown, but they probably weren’t anywhere near Mount Sinai. Nonetheless, secularists crusading for a religious-free public square are gaining adherents.  On March 28, U.S. District Judge Joseph H. McKinley questioned the intent of Grayson County government and ruled that the Ten Commandments display they authorized in 2001 had the "effect of endorsing religion." 

McKinley also called their attempt at depicting the display as educational, a "sham." So he permanently barred the Decalogue, but allowed to remain the Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, Magna Carta, Star Spangled Banner, National Motto, Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, and Bill of Rights. The empty frame which held the Commandments is still on display.

Kentucky citizens are now left to wander in the wilderness of confusion when it comes to the legality of displaying the Ten Commandments in public. Let’s just hope it’s not for another 40 years.  In 2005, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court upheld Mercer County’s Ten Commandments display which was identical to Grayson’s.  That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Ten Commandments monument on the Texas capitol grounds. Five justices reasoned that display was okay since it existed within a historical context of other monuments. But in another case originating in McCreary County, Kentucky, the court ordered the Ten Commandments removed from the courthouse wall even though they were posted with other historical documents. They said the real intent behind posting the document was religious instead of merely historical.

If this sounds confusing, it is because it is confusing.

Essentially, one has to be clairvoyant to determine the motivation that would make one display legal and another identical display elsewhere illegal. It makes one wonder just what kind of higher power the secularists and Judge McKinley are tapped into. The real question is that if a particular display is legal, then should the intent behind the display really matter?

Absolutely, according to ACLU inspired doctrines of church/state separation. Anything deemed to be religious—more specifically Christian—should not be allowed into the public square according to America’s gatekeepers of political correctness.  They do this in the name of protecting the feelings of those who are offended by the Commandments. But what of those who wanted the Commandments in the courthouse?

It is clear that the self-appointed guardians of free speech aren’t really interested in protecting the free speech rights of elected officials or their religious constituents--none of whom were imposing a religion or forcing spectators to pay homage to the document. After all, the Grayson County display was donated by a local citizen and paid for with private money.

The Grayson County Fiscal Court simply exercised their First Amendment rights the same way Kentucky’s leaders exercised their rights when they declared in the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution to be “grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties we enjoy.”  The same way our Founding Fathers did when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.”  The same way we say “one nation under God” when we recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Too many judges go to great pains to explain away our history. And when judges find pretenses for the removal of Ten Commandments displays, it’s government censorship and secularists know it. 

Nobody expects Moses to come down from the mountain with new tablets for Grayson County, but he’d have to wonder what will fill the empty frame in the County Courthouse.

So do I.