Federal Judges Rule Indiana Ten Commandments Display Constitutional
by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
March 29, 2005
(AgapePress) - A federal appeals court has upheld a display of the Ten Commandments as part of a historical exhibit in one Indiana government building.The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that officials in Elkhart, Indiana, did not violate the establishment clause of the Constitution of the United States by displaying the biblical laws in the County Administration Building (Elkhart County). That display also includes nine historical documents and symbols, along with the flags of the United States and the State of Indiana.
Mat Staver is president of Liberty Counsel, the legal group that represented the county in the case. He says the ruling is significant because the Elkhart County display is identical to the Ten Commandments display at the center of a case that is now under consideration by the justices of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC.
Mat Staver | |
"We will notify the United States Supreme Court of the recent ruling by the Federal Court of Appeals," Staver says, "and I think this Court of Appeals decision has good rationale, good reasoning, and sound logic that could be influential in the final outcome of the Kentucky Ten Commandments case currently pending before the Supreme Court."According to the head of Liberty Counsel, the Seventh Circuit ruled that the display in the Elkhart County Administration Building need not be purged of its biblically-themed content. And in so deciding, the attorney says, the court rejected an attempt to rewrite the nation's history.
Instead, the Seventh Circuit's decision stated that it is "well within the bounds of constitutional plausibility to assert, as the County does here, that the Ten Commandments have played an important role in the development of American society and civic order." Meanwhile, Staver notes, one member of the appellate court offered a dissenting opinion that was equally favorable to the County's case.
"One of the judges in that case who is very influential and highly thought of among his colleagues and peers -- Judge Easterbrook -- actually would have gone even a step further," the Liberty Counsel president says. "He would have dismissed this entire lawsuit brought by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union on the basis that they had no standing, or no right, to bring the lawsuit."
Staver says Judge Easterbrook pointed out, for example, "that words do not coerce someone to participate in a religious exercise." The federal judge opined that the court need not have addressed the merits of the lawsuit, and also stated that he had "serious doubts" concerning "the supposition that the Establishment Clause affects the states in the same way as the national government."
Easterbrook also made a distinction between the terms "endorsement" and "establishment," using a memorable analogy. He asserted that the government does not "establish milk as the national beverage when it endorses milk as a part of a sound diet.'" In his dissenting opinion, the judge wrote that words do not coerce, and that mere offense to a religious display does not grant the offended party standing to sue.
Pleased with both the majority ruling and the dissenting opinion, Liberty Counsel's Staver states, "The Ten Commandments is a universally recognized symbol of law." Displaying that symbol, he adds, does not establish a religion but rather acknowledges religion and its role in America.
