Laws from on High: Religious Displays on Public Property

The Ten Commandments monument was removed from a building in Alabama, causing a big argument. People are split on whether it’s okay to have religious stuff in public places. Roy Moore, the chief judge of the Alabama Supreme Court, put the monument there and now people don’t agree on whether he did the right thing or not. This shows that the issue of separating church and state is still a big deal in America. The Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says that Congress can’t make any laws favoring one religion or stopping people from practicing their religion. Courts have had trouble making consistent decisions about religious symbols in public places, like the Ten Commandments. Some people think religion and government should be separate, while others think our laws are based on Judeo-Christian ideas. It’s confusing because public meetings can have prayers, but high school graduations can’t. The courts haven’t fixed this issue yet. Indiana state officials wanted to display the Ten Commandments, along with other historical documents, at the statehouse. However, the court said this was not allowed because it did not have a secular (non-religious) purpose. In Kentucky, there was a legal case about displaying the Ten Commandments in a courthouse. The court allowed the display because it was seen as having a secular purpose, not a religious one. The U.S. Supreme Court later gave different rulings in similar cases, with one display being allowed and the other being struck down. This showed that there is still disagreement on how to handle displays of religious symbols on public property. Two Kentucky counties displayed the Ten Commandments in their courthouses and were sued by the ACLU for violating the First Amendment’s establishment clause. The courts ruled that the displays were not allowed because they lacked a secular purpose and made specific reference to Christianity. The Lemon test, which determines if a law establishes religion, has three parts: the law must have a secular purpose, its effect can’t advance or inhibit religion, and it can’t create excessive government entanglement with religion. The Supreme Court rejected the counties’ request to abandon the first part of the Lemon test, stating that examining the purpose of a law is important for the establishment clause. The Court emphasized the need to rely on objective facts when determining purpose. The Supreme Court didn’t want to change the Lemon case. They used the Stone v. Graham case as a guide, which said the Ten Commandments are important but can’t be just displayed in schools. They can only be used as part of a class lesson. The Court’s decision seems confusing, but it shows that the context of where the Ten Commandments are displayed is important. The Court upheld the Ten Commandments display at the Texas State Capitol in Austin by a 5-4 vote. They said it’s okay because it’s part of a larger display of monuments representing the values of the people of Texas. The Court also said that the Lemon test is not useful for this kind of display. They decided that the Ten Commandments, when displayed with other secular symbols, can be allowed on government property as long as it’s not trying to establish the Ten Commandments as the main laws of the state. The McCreary County and Van Orden cases don’t give clear rules for displaying the Ten Commandments on government property. The Supreme Court needs to give better guidance on how to decide these cases in the future. People who don’t want religious displays will probably use the McCreary case to argue against them, while people who do want religious displays will probably use the Van Orden case to argue for them. The Supreme Court will have to make decisions on cases like this in the future, and it’s hard to predict what they will decide.

Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/laws-from-on-high-religious-displays-on-public-property/