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Showing posts from June, 2005

Ten Commandments Revisited

Yesterday, the Supreme Court rendered its decisions in the two cases related to Ten Commandments displays. In McCreary County, Kentucky v. ACLU of Kentucky , the Court held that the display of large, readily visible framed copies of the Ten Commandments in county courthouses violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, and this violation was not remedied when the counties, after initiation of the lawsuit, added displays of secular documents containing religious references. In Van Orden v. Perry , the Court held that a donated 6-foot-high monolith inscribed with the Ten Commandments, added to a preexisting display outside the courthouse that already contained a few dozen monuments and markers, did not violate the establishment clause. I have provided links to the full text of the opinions at the end of this post, but I have not yet had a chance to thoroughly review both of these lengthy opinions (75 pages each). I skimmed the summaries at the beginning of the opinions, and