Friday, April 21, 2000
Ten Commandments debate moves to court
Called historical documents
BY Kimberly Hefling
The Associated Press
LONDON, Ky. — A Ten Commandments plaque and a display accompanying it in two courthouses and on the classroom walls of one school district are not religious documents, but are secular and make up the official and permanent history of American government, attorneys for the three governing bodies argued Thursday in federal court.
Forcing the removal of the historical displays in the McCreary and Pulaski courthouses and from the walls of Harlan County classrooms would amount to censorship, said Ronald D. Ray, a Crestwood attorney representing the defendants.
But David Friedman, lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union in Louisville, said the purpose of the displays is religious and amounts to an unconstitutional mix of church and state.
“The law is clear that the government must remain neutral” on the issue of religion, Mr. Friedman argued before U.S. District Judge B. Coffman.
Judge Coffman said following the nearly three-hour hearing that she will issue a written ruling shortly over two issues: whether to grant the ACLU's request for an injunction to remove the postings while the case proceeds, and whether to dismiss the case.
In the last year, a string of Kentucky school districts and fiscal courts have voted to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms and courthouses.
On Nov. 18, the ACLU filed suit in U.S. District Court in London against the three. No monetary damages are sought.
The suit again made Kentucky a battleground for a Ten Commandments fight. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a Kentucky case that the commandments posted in schools was unconstitutional.
The courthouse displays in Pulaski and McCreary counties include a Feb. 2, 1983, copy of the Congressional Record that lists the Ten Commandments. Also included are parts from the Declaration of Independence, the preamble to the Kentucky constitution and the Mayflower Compact that are religious in nature.
There is also a proclamation from President Reagan declaring 1983 the year of the Bible, and a framed quote from President Lincoln that reads “The Bible is the greatest gift God has even given to man.”
After the suit was filed, the Harlan County board passed a resolution calling the Ten Commandments and other documents such as the Declaration of Independence historical documents, and altered its display to include the Declaration of Independence, and Mayflower Compact and a copy of the resolution.
Johnnie Turner, school board attorney, said after the hearing that the board believed that by doing so the ACLU would have no legal standing.
During the hearing, Mr. Friedman argued that the Ten Commandments should be taken down while the case proceeds because one of the plaintiffs, an unnamed middle school student in the Harlan County school system, is obligated by law to go to class and must look at the commandments.
But Ten Amshoff Jr., a Louisville attorney representing the defendants, said there is no proof that anyone could be harmed if the postings remain, adding the names of the Harlan County plaintiffs should be revealed.
Mr. Friedman said the only way the ACLU believes the postings would be constitutional in a courthouse would be if the postings were part of a display that showed the history of America's system of laws, or if the commandments were posted as part of a true free speech wall.
In a classroom setting, the teaching of the commandments would be constitutional if it were part of a comparative religions class, Mr. Friedman said.
But the displays dealt with in the suit are religious in nature, and the Ten Commandments are the focal point, making them unconstitutional, Mr. Friedman said.
“There's no question here why these were put up,” he said.
Mr. Friedman said a newspaper quote by Pulaski County Judge-Executive Darrell BeShears when the commandments were posted in the Pulaski County courthouse in support of God, shows the religious bias of the Ten Commandments supporters.
But Mr. Amshoff said the clipping does not prove anything.
In his closing argument, he said that the court should not get in the habit of micromanaging what is posted on public walls.
“The court need not become the interior decorator of every Kentucky courtroom,” Mr. Amshoff said.
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