Thursday, April 27, 2006

Decalogue trumps ACLU again

From http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49883

LAW OF THE LAND

Decalogue trumps ACLU again

C

Posted: April 24, 20062:39 p.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

The American Civil Liberties Union suffered another defeat in its quest to bar the Ten Commandments from the public square today as the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a display of the Decalogue in Kentucky is constitutional.

In the case ACLU of Kentucky v. Mercer County, Kentucky, the court voted 9-5 to uphold the Foundations of American Law and Government display at the county courthouse.
The display includes the Ten Commandments, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Charta, the Star-Spangled Banner, the National Motto, the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution, and a picture of Lady Justice.

Liberty Counsel represented Mercer County, as did the law firm before the Supreme Court last year in which two other Kentucky counties had displayed the Foundations of American Law and Government. Those two cases are ongoing.

The original, three-judge panel of the appeals court upheld the display, saying the ACLU's "repeated reference to 'the separation of church and state' … [had] grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state."
The ACLU then requested the full 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the case, and the panel rejected the civil-liberties group's arguments once more.

Mathew D. Staver is president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel.

"Today's decision begins to turn the tide against the ACLU, which has been on a search-and-destroy mission to remove all vestiges of our religious history from public view," Staver said in a statement. "Whether the ACLU likes it or not, history is crystal clear that each one of the Ten Commandments played an important role in the founding of our system of law and government. Federal courts are beginning to rightfully reject extreme notions of 'separation of church and state.' It's about time that courts begin interpreting the Constitution consistent with its original purpose. With the changing of personnel at the U.S. Supreme Court, the trend toward a more historical approach to the First Amendment is well under way."

No comments: