Texas Capitol Gets to Keep Its Ten Commandments Monument
by Allie Martin
November 18, 2003
(AgapePress) - A Texas attorney says a recent ruling by a federal court which allowed a Ten Commandments monument to stay on Capitol grounds in Austin is an example of the need for the U.S. Supreme Court to address the issue.Last week, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a claim by a homeless Austin attorney who sued to have a monument of God's laws removed because he claimed it endorsed Christianity and Judaism, made non-religious citizens feel "second-class," and offended him. But the court of appeals said the monument could remain.
The Ten Commandments display was a gift from the Fraternal Order of Eagles more than 40 years ago that was meant, among other things, to encourage morality. Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel of Liberty Legal Institute, says the appeals court upheld the monument because of its historical significance.
"Fortunately so far, the district court and now the federal court of appeals have upheld the monument and said there's nothing unconstitutional about having a Ten Commandments monument on the lawn," Shackelford says. "It's part of our history, and we don't have to sort of turn a blind eye and treat it like pornography."
Shackelford adds that the Constitution does not give someone the right to eradicate religious documents and symbols simply because they feel offended. If that were the case, he says, more than a simple monument would be at stake.
"We would go into eradicating our religious documents in history -- we'd go into the Declaration of Independence and take all the 'God' words out, [and] we would have to go to our national monuments and sandblast 'God' off of those because somebody is offended," he says. In fact, he says, the Constitution prohibits such action.
"Welcome to America," the attorney says rhetorically, "where people sometimes are offended. But the truth is the truth, and our history is clearly replete with references to God."
The Liberty Legal Institute attorney says he expects the case to eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
