Court won't rule on commandments

WASHINGTON -- Courts across America have reached different conclusions in emotional Ten Commandments cases, some allowing government displays of the biblical list, others barring it.

Only the Supreme Court can resolve the question, and it chose Monday to steer clear.

The court quietly turned down an appeal from Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon, who wanted permission to place a 7-foot stone monument on the grounds of the state Capitol.

The court's action was a defeat for Indiana and other states that sought the high court's endorsement for the notion that the Ten Commandments are as much emblems of legal tradition as they are biblical teachings.

"To just cavalierly dismiss is to put aside what is becoming a very large, growing concern on the part of millions of Americans," said Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister whose Ten Commandments Project supports the list's display.

"People are petty for attacking the Ten Commandments, and it should not be sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court," Schenck said.

The Indiana case presented an opportunity for a broad ruling on government display of the Ten Commandments, whether outdoors on monuments or indoors in courtrooms or other civic spaces.

Instead, the hodgepodge of conflicting court rulings will continue at least until the next time the court faces a similar appeal.

Monuments such as Indiana's are forbidden in that state along with Illinois and Wisconsin, but allowed in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Under a 1994 appeals court ruling, plaques bearing the Ten Commandments may not be displayed in courthouses in Alabama, Florida and Georgia. In recent years state and federal courts have also struck down display of similar plaques in South Carolina and Kentucky.

To add to the confusion, some monuments or plaques remain in jurisdictions that theoretically prohibit them. In Alabama, opponents claim the state's chief justice flouted a federal appeals court ruling by installing a 5,280-pound depiction of the Ten Commandments in the state Supreme Court rotunda.

"All Americans should feel welcome when they walk into a city hall, a courthouse or a public school," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "The posting of religious symbols there says some religious groups are better than others."

Nine states joined in a friend-of-the-court brief asking the high court to hear the Indiana case. The law is unclear, making it difficult for state legislatures to know what to do, attorneys general in Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Virginia wrote.

"The importance of the issue in this case goes beyond simply whether government may display the Ten Commandments on a monument on public property," the states wrote. "The larger issue is the extent to which government may acknowledge and accommodate religion as being an important part of our nation's heritage."

Religious and secular

The Ten Commandments contain both religious and secular directives, including the familiar proscriptions against stealing, killing and adultery. The Bible says God gave the list to Moses.

The Constitution bars government promotion of religion but protects the individual's freedom to worship as he pleases.

Last May, the court divided bitterly in turning away a separate case involving display of a Ten Commandments monument outside a civic building.

The court's three most conservative members took the rare step of announcing that they would have agreed to hear that case, prompting an angry rejoinder from one of the most liberal justices.

The monument "simply reflects the Ten Commandments' role in the development of our legal system," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for himself and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

The words "I am the Lord thy God," in the first line of the monument's inscription are "rather hard to square with the proposition that the monument expresses no particular religious preference," Justice John Paul Stevens replied.

In the current case, O'Bannon wanted the donated monument to replace one defaced by a vandal. The Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sued, and lower federal courts blocked the installation on grounds that it promoted a religious purpose.

The case is O'Bannon v. Indiana Civil Liberties Union, 01-966.