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THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Legal Challenges: Year 2000
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Read about events from the year
1999
Year 2000 legal challenges and court decisions:
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2000-JAN-27: Colorado: Hearings were held on a state bill to
require that the Ten Commandments be posted on Colorado public
schools, both on the classroom walls and entryways. Also, every
public school would begin each day with reflection "on our
heritage as a free people in one nation under God." The
"Moral Heritage" bill was introduced by Senator John Andrews (R-Englewood). Andrews
argued that his bill was educational and not religious. Darrell
Scott, father of Rachel Scott who died at Columbine pointed out that
since the U.S. Supreme Court declared classroom prayer
unconstitutional, SAT scores have dropped, violence has increased,
and teenage pregnancies have soared. Evie Hudak of the Colorado PTA
opposed the bill because "it's the parents' responsibility
to see to the spiritual education of their children -- not the
schools'." 1 |
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2000-FEB-9: Indiana: According to the Maranatha
Christian Journal, the Indiana Senate approved a bill to allow
the Ten Commandments to be displayed within a
collection with other historical documents, in schools and
government offices. The vote was 38 to 9. To our knowledge, this is the first state or
federal "Ten Commandment" bill in recent years that
might actually be constitutional. The corresponding House bill would
authorize the posting of the Commandments in isolation -- a clearly
unconstitutional practice. "Pro-Ten Commandments bills also
are being considered in at least five states, Kentucky, Colorado,
Georgia, South Dakota and Oklahoma." |
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2000-FEB-9: Illinois: House Bill 3854, sponsored by
Representative James Fowler (R-Harrisburg) was passed by a House
Committee. It would ban "content-based censorship of
American history or heritage based on any religious references
contained in these documents, writings or records."
Edwin C. Yohnka, ACLU Director of Communications commented: "The
Illinois General Assembly simply cannot rearrange constitutional
protections to gain political advantage. The sponsor of this
legislation acknowledged in the Committee hearing that the
legislation's central purpose is to facilitate posting the Ten
Commandments in public schools -- a clear violation of federal law
and the Illinois state constitution." The school board in
Harrisburg had earlier voted to display the Ten Commandments. They
reversed their decision one day before the ACLU was to file a
federal lawsuit. Yohnka commented: "This is simply another
effort by an ideologically driven group to force their views upon an
entire community. In Harrisburg, we heard numerous disturbing
stories about the way in which that controversy caused intolerance
and disunity. We do not need for this process to be repeated
all over the State of Illinois." |
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2000-FEB-15: Kentucky: House Bill 111 had been stalled in
committee for weeks. It would have allowed voters in individual
school districts to hold a referendum and decide whether the Ten
Commandments would be posted in their schools. The bill would have
required the schools to teach the Commandments along with the codes of other
religions. Senator Albert Robinson (R-London) objected because the
schools would then teach religious codes other than Christianity. He
said ''When the boat came to these great shores, it did not have
an atheist, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew.
Ninety-eight-plus percent of these people were Christians.'' [Author's
note: Robinson appears to be unaware that as the first boat
approached the shoreline of North America, 100% of the inhabitants
of the hemisphere followed Native American spirituality. And then,
of course, there were untold numbers of boats conveying slaves to
America who
followed Native African Spirituality or Islam. We have given our third
Burning Times Award to Senator Robinson] He
sponsored his own bill SJR57 in the form of a joint resolution.
House Bill 111 allows community groups or individuals to pay for the cost of
installing and maintaining displays of the Commandments. It was
supported by 32 cosponsors. Senator Ernesto
Scorsone (D-Lexington) was the only person to vote against the bill
when it finally came to a vote;
he was concerned about its constitutionality. The resolution passed
37 to 1. |
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2000-FEB-28: Pope's views on the Decalog: At the foot of a
mountain that some Christians believe is Mount Sinai, Pope John Paul
II said that the Ten Commandments "are not an arbitrary
imposition of a tyrannical Lord. They were written in stone; but,
before that, they were written on the human heart as the universal
moral law, valid in every time and place. Today, as always, the Ten
Words of the Law provide the only true basis for the lives of
individuals, societies and nations. Today as always, they are the only
future of the human family. They save man from the destructive force
of egoism, hatred, and falsehood. They point out all the false gods
that draw him into slavery: the love of self to the exclusion of God,
the greed for power and pleasure that overturns the order of justice
and degrades our human dignity and that of our neighbor." The
Pope visited the Church of the Transfiguration at the world's
oldest Christian monastery in the world. It dates from the 6th century
CE. The Orthodox abbot and monks were unable to pray with
the Pope. The Abbot explained: "There is still no full
ecclesial communion. That is why we cannot pray together." |
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2000-MAR-14: Indiana: Governor Frank O'Bannon signed a Ten
Commandments bill into law. He also decreed that a new state
monument of the Decalogue will be built on the statehouse lawn to
replace an earlier monument that had been damaged by vandals. It
will weigh over 9 tons. It will be financed with private donations.
The American Civil Liberties Union is expected to initiate a
lawsuit. John Krull, executive director of the ACLU in Indiana
warned, "The state can't pick and choose which religions are
historically valid." 2 |
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2000-APR-18: California: In 1995, Edward DiLoreto had paid the Downey High School
Baseball Booster Club $400 to display his sign at the baseball field of Downey
High School, in Downey CA. The sign included a copy of the Ten Commandments,
with a statement asking people to "pause and meditate on
these principles to live by!" Other, non-religious signs
had already been allowed in the same advertising space. The school
district removed the advertisement, and cancelled the contract. They
cited separation of church and state issues, and concern over
disruption and controversy. The school district subsequently removed
all advertising from the baseball field fence. DiLoreto sued. He
lost the case in Superior Court and at the Court of Appeals. Judge
Susan Illston of the Court of Appeals ruled: "Government
polices and practices that historically have allowed commercial
advertising, but have excluded political and religious expression,
indicate an intent not to designate a public forum for all
expressive activity, but to reserve it for commercial speech...In
this case, the District did not intend to designate the baseball
field fence as a public forum for expressive activity. To
raise funds, the District solicited business advertisements, thereby
limiting the content of the forum through its solicitation process.
District officials excluded certain subjects from the advertising
forum as sensitive or too controversial for the forum's high school
context." Noting that an advertisement from Planned
Parenthood had also been rejected, the court concluded that the
baseball field fence was "a forum limited to certain
subjects and not open for indiscriminate use by the general public,"
and that district officials were within their rights in refusing ads
"that would be disruptive to the educational purpose of the
school."
On 2000-APR-17, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case,
DiLoreto v. Board of Education. The lower court ruling
stands. | |
2000-MAY-18: Status in USA:
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Bills concerning the posting of the Ten Commandments have been introduced in the legislatures of 12 states |
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Indiana, Kentucky, and South Dakota have new laws on the books
which authorize
posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools and government
offices. |
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Realizing that the posting of the Ten Commandments in schools
is unconstitutional, legislators in a few states have introduced bills that
allow them to be posted in a display with other historical legal
documents. |
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2000-MAY-19: Kentucky: Federal Judge Jennifer
B. Coffman ordered state officials to remove wall displays that
include the Ten Commandments from public school classrooms and from
two county courthouses. She alleged that the displays implied a
government endorsement of a specific religion. She wrote: "each
and every document [in the displays] refers to religion. Several have
been edited to include only their religious references. Indeed, the
only unifying element among the documents is their reference to God,
the Bible, or religion." The displays consisted of the
Mayflower Compact, the preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, a
proclamation issued by President Ronald Reagan declaring 1983 The Year
of the Bible, an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, an 1863
proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln designating a National Day
of Prayer and Humiliation, and the national motto "In God We
Trust." The defendants contend that these documents are
historical in nature; they have filed motions to stay the injunctions
with both the U.S. District Court and the Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals. Defense lawyer Colonel Ronald D. Ray said:
"You can’t call the Congressional Record a religious
document. That flies in the face of the Constitution, which provides
for the Congressional Record. This is censorship of the permanent and
official history of American civil government." Earlier, McCreary
County Judge-Executive Jimmie W. Greene said: "Before I
personally take them down I will resign my office or go to jail. I
respect the law, but this would be one order I would have to disobey."
He later changed his mind and led a group of supporters to move the
documents from the county courthouse to the local American Legion
post. Schools in Harlan County removed the religious documents but
left the frames on the wall. Liberty Counsel, a Fundamentalist
Christian legal firm has said that they would withdraw their appeal
before the 6th Circuit Court. Erik Stanley, an attorney with the
group, said that the odds of winning a new hearing "are pretty
bleak." A compromise solution will be sought. | |
2000-JUN-15:
Indiana: The Elkhart School Board rejected by a vote of
6 to 1 a suggestion that the Ten Commandments be displayed along with historical documents. A local lawyer, Paul Eash, told the board that he
was willing to act on their behalf in any future lawsuit, at a
reduced rate. The Indiana Attorney General's office would also
assist the board. Supporters of the Commandments maintained that
the nation's founding fathers were Christians who wanted
Christianity in the public schools. They expressed concern about an
alleged moral decline in the nation since the Supreme Court
eliminated mandatory prayer and Bible verse recitation from public
schools. One supporter said: "Things are getting out of
control; I'm in favor of posting them. We have to do something."
In opposition was Mike Suetkamp, the State Director for American
Atheists. Commenting on supporters of Commandments, he said: "The
motivation of these people has nothing to do with history ...it has
to do with promoting their beliefs over others...To post these [Commandments] as a moral law is wrong." He pointed out that
many of the country's founding fathers were Deists, not Christians.
He said that
the Commandments violated the spirit of the Bill of Rights. Susan
Dry pointed out that "Any student who does not support the
posting of the Ten Commandments will be subject to
harassment...Non-Christians are a minority, and we have to be
protected from the tyranny of the majority." 3 | |
2000-NOV-14: Indiana: Monument for statehouse lawn: According to the Indianapolis
Star: A massive limestone monument, engraved with the Ten Commandments, the
Bill of Rights,
and the preamble to the U.S. Constitution was originally built to be installed
on the statehouse lawn. It is seven feet tall and weighs 9.5 tons. U.S.
District Judge Sarah Evans Barker had ruled the display to be
unconstitutional. However, Lawrence County commissioners arranged to have the
monument placed temporarily on their courthouse lawn pending an appeal to the
7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Commenting on the courthouse installation,
Judge Barker said: "You have to leave room for people to have greatly
different views from yours." Two dozen adults attended court in
support of the commissioners. In an apparent reference to the lawsuit brought
by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a single plaintiff,
Rodney Burton voiced an unusual legal principle: "We think it's unconstitutional that one person in
Lawrence County can go against everyone else." | |
2000-DEC-14: Indiana: Second monument must go: The U.S. Seventh
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a 1958 monument of the Ten Commandments
in front of the Elkhart, Indiana municipal building violated the
Establishment clause separation of church and state. They wrote:
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"As a starting point, we do not think it can be said that the
Ten Commandments, standing by themselves, can be stripped of their
religious, indeed sacred, significance and characterized as a moral or
ethical document." |
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"Even if we were to ignore the primary purpose behind
displaying the Ten Commandments monument, we would have to conclude that
this particular display has the primary or principal effect of advancing
religion..." |
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This decision reversed a 1999-DEC ruling by U.S. District Judge Allen Sharp
who found the monument constitutional. He noted that the monument had a
secular purpose: the promotion of morality in youth. It contained Jewish,
Christian and secular symbols. It was located near some war monuments. Mike
Suetkamp, Indiana State Director for American Atheists, commented:
"There are several suits throughout the state dealing with Ten
Commandment displays on government property, including the one on the grounds
of the state capitol. This [Elkhart decision] could have an important impact
in having these unconstitutional religious symbols removed...It's been worth
the fight." 4 See event of 2001-MAY-29 below.
Related essays on this site:
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John Sanko, "Bill spurs emotional hearing," Denver Rocky
Mountain News, 2000-JAN-28, at: http://insidedenver.com/
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"Atheistic director charges proselytizing by commandments supporters,
as board rejects display same," AANEWS, 2000-JUN-15.
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"Atheist director wins as federal circuit court strikes Ten
Commandment monument in Indiana," AANEWS for 2000-DEC-13.
Copyright © 2000, 2001 & 2004, by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
Originally written: 2000-JUL
Latest update: 2004-AUG-01
Author: B.A. Robinson 
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