Kentucky federal judge tosses challenge to Ten Commandments display
By The Associated Press
01.24.03
LEXINGTON, Ky. —A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union asking that local officials be forced to remove the Ten Commandments from the Mercer County Courthouse.
U.S. District Judge Karl S. Forester, in the Jan. 22 ruling, handed the ACLU its first defeat in a string of lawsuits challenging the postings of the Ten Commandments in government buildings in Kentucky.
Mercer County officials had posted the Ten Commandments along with the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and other texts of historical significance in a display titled "Foundations of American Law and Government."
Forester said the display clearly has a legitimate secular purpose in acknowledging the historical influence of the Ten Commandments on the development of law in the United States. The judge also said he saw no evidence indicating a religious purpose by Mercer County officials.
Another federal judge ruled that similar displays in Harlan, McCreary and Pulaski counties were unconstitutional.
Frank Manion, an attorney for the American Center for Law and Justice, said this week's decision is a key victory for proponents of public displays of the Ten Commandments.
"It's a blueprint for how government can legally display the Ten Commandments," Manion said. "If more of counties would follow the lead of what Mercer County did here with this display, few judges could justify striking them down."
Forester had denied the ACLU's motion for a preliminary injunction to force Mercer County to remove the display in a hearing last August.
"It's clear that he disagrees with us on the law," said ACLU attorney David Friedman. "We're certainly disappointed that he felt compelled to issue the ruling now."
Friedman, who plans to appeal the ruling, said he was under the impression that Forester had stayed the Mercer County case, along with similar ones from Garrard and Rowan counties, pending a ruling on a similar lawsuit by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
Manion said the display in Mercer County was similar to those that the ACLU has complained about in courthouses in other counties. The difference, he said, is its history.
Harlan, McCreary and Pulaski counties had displays of the Ten Commandments and added other documents later. In Mercer County, the Ten Commandments didn't predate the other documents but were posted simultaneously.
In a preliminary ruling in June 2001, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Coffman ordered the Ten Commandments removed from displays at courthouses in McCreary and Pulaski counties and on school property in Harlan County.
Coffman said in her ruling that the purpose and the effect of displaying the Ten Commandments were "religious in nature." She said that the history of the Ten Commandments displays, which originally were posted separately at the courthouses and schools and then were displayed as part of a group of documents, "bolstered the reasonable observer's perception of the state endorsement of religion."
The Kentucky counties appealed that ruling to the 6th Circuit, which hasn't yet issued a decision.