ADF Plans To Appeal Oklahoma Ten Commandments Case To U.S. Supreme Court

The Alliance Defense Fund reports that "in a 6-to-6 decision, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit Thursday narrowly decided not to review a three-judge panel’s determination that a Ten Commandments display at the Haskell County, Oklahoma, Courthouse is unconstitutional. Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund plan to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit to have the monument removed on behalf of a man who claims he was offended by it. In August 2006, a federal district court judge ruled that the presence of the Ten Commandments monument on the Haskell County Courthouse lawn was constitutional. The courthouse lawn area also includes memorials to veterans of World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Korean War; an Unmarked Graves monument; a Choctaw Indian Tribe Monument; as well as numerous other items commemorating significant events. The ACLU then appealed the decision to a three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit, which reversed the district court’s ruling in June. ADF attorneys appealed to the full court for review."

In a dissenting opinion accompanying the order in Green v. Haskell County Board of Commissioners, Judge Paul J. Kelly, joined by others, wrote, “The court’s decision in this case perpetuates a regrettable misapprehension of the Establishment Clause: that recognition of the role of religion in this country’s founding, history, traditions, and laws is to be strictly excluded from the civic sphere.... The opinion strongly suggests that Ten Commandments displays authorized by small-town commissioners who harbor personal religious beliefs are unconstitutional establishments of religion. Such a conclusion is not only inconsistent with the original meaning of the Establishment Clause, but is also plainly contrary to the Supreme Court’s precedent in Van Orden v. Perry.” Tweet