Pro-Family Attorney Sees Tide Turning Against ACLU's Anti-Religion Efforts
by Allie Martin
January 25, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A Tennessee County is fighting to keep its Ten Commandments display in public. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit requesting a permanent injunction against a display of the biblical laws at the Rutherford County Courthouse in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Four years ago, Rutherford County commissioners voted to display historical documents relating to the founding of the United States, including the Ten Commandments. The other documents in the "Foundations of American Law and Government" tableau include copies of the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, the Tennessee Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner, and a drawing of "Lady Justice."
Despite the County's use of the Ten Commandments in a historical context, a lawsuit was filed claiming the display violated the United States Constitution. Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, is defending the display in the legal proceedings.
Mat Staver | |
On the plus side for his clients, Staver contends, is a recent federal appeals court ruling that upheld an identical display in Kentucky. "This case in Rutherford County, Tennessee, will now move forward," he explains. "But to the chagrin of the ACLU, which has now filed its motion to permanently prohibit the Ten Commandments, the case law is no longer in their favor." The attorney contends that the courts and history both are working against the civil liberties group. "I think in fact what has happened," he says, "is the landscape and the court rulings have changed over the last six months." Notably, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently declared that the First Amendment to the Constitution does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.
But despite the changing legal climate, Staver says ACLU litigators simply "can't restrain themselves" and will keep pressing to remove representations of religious faith from the public square, "even though they see the handwriting on the wall."
The Liberty Counsel spokesman says the civil liberties group's attorneys "still have an anti-religious agenda," although he believes they will probably be more careful in selecting their future cases. "They clearly realize that the landscape has changed," he says. "They no longer can count on the U.S. Supreme Court to be their friend in their anti-God campaign."
"The tide is turning against the ACLU's war on the Ten Commandments," Staver observes. "Within the past few months we defeated them when two separate federal courts of appeal upheld displays of the Ten Commandments identical to that displayed in Rutherford County, Tennessee."
In fact, Staver adds, "Every federal court of appeals that has ruled on the Ten Commandments since the Supreme Court's ruling has upheld such displays." He believes it is clear, particularly with the impending confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito, that the ACLU can no longer count on the high court's help in the liberal group's efforts to get rid of public representations of God's laws.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
