Friday, March 03, 2000
Ten Commandment defenders build up funds
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
In less than one year, the community group supporting the display of the Ten Commandments at Adams County, Ohio, schools has sold more than 60,000 yard signs and built a legal defense fund of more than $70,000.
A report this week on the CBS Evening News has increased interest nationwide in the group Adams County for the Ten Commandments, organizers say. Signs have been sold for $2 each to people and groups in 35 states. There is a theme to the responses.
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TO ORDER ITEMS
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Adams County for the Ten Commandments has a Web site, www.4the10.net, where information and merchandise are available. Proceeds support their efforts to fight a lawsuit seeking removal of the Ten Commandments from four Adams County schools.
Orders also can be placed by phone at (888) 474-4679.
Ten Commandments yard signs are available for $2 each with a minimum order of 25. More than 60,000 have been sold and another 10,000 have been ordered by the group.
Mugs, T-shirts and caps also are available.
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“People are letting us know in phone calls, e-mails, notes with donations, that "it's great to know there's so many people who feel the way I do,'” said the Rev. Tom Claibourne, an organizer for Adams County for the Ten Commandments and pastor of Bethlehem Church of Christ in Winchester. “People seemed thrilled to have a case like this to rally around.”
Tuesday is the deadline for filing motions to avoid trial in a case brought in February 1999 by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU, on behalf of Peebles resident Berry Baker, sued the Adams County/Ohio Valley School Board for allowing the Ten Commandments to be displayed in front of four schools.
ACLU Attorney Scott Greenwood said Thursday he will file a motion asking a federal judge in Cincinnati to order removal of the Ten Commandment tablets.
Mr. Greenwood said the tablets violate the First Amendment restriction that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
“The mere fact that the majority of people want (the tablets) there doesn't mean they can legally stay there,” Mr. Greenwood said.
The gray stones are carved with a flying eagle, an American flag and the Ten Commandments — the list of moral laws that the Bible's Old Testament says were given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai.
Mr. Baker, identified as interim director of the Center for Phallic Worship, filed a federal lawsuit asking that the
monuments be declared unconstitutional and torn down.
With the yard signs as a barometer, the Adams County group and school district officials have support to keep the Ten Commandments on display.
On top of the 60,000 signs that have been made, another 10,000 were ordered this week. A member of a group in Harlan County, Ky., where the commandments are posted in public school classrooms, picked up 2,000 yard signs Tuesday.
“There is a frustration where the country is morally,” said the Rev. Mr. Claibourne. “There is frustration with the ACLU.”
Don and Margie Bolender display a Ten Commandments yard sign in front of their Milford home. The blue sign has been there since August, and no one has commented on it, nor has it been damaged or taken.
Their pastor, the Rev. Rob Cordrey of Milford Church of Christ, spent $200 on 100 signs and distributed them to church members.
“If they had this more in the schools now, we wouldn't have violence going on,” Mrs. Bolender said. “If we get back to basics and the Ten Commandments, we'd be back on track.”
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