Judge Moore and Foundation for Moral Law File Brief in Federal Appeals Court Defending Oklahoma Ten Commandments Display

March 22, 2007

Judge Roy Moore and attorneys at the Foundation for Moral Law filed “friend-of-the-court” brief today with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit arguing that the words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution do not prohibit the display of a Ten Commandments monument on the front lawn of the Haskell County Courthouse in Stigler, Oklahoma. (Click here to read the brief.)

Judge Moore stated, “Public displays of the Ten Commandments represent a completely constitutional acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law and liberty in our government. It is ridiculous that the ACLU continues to push for the total exclusion of any recognition of God in public as it is doing in this case. The Foundation for Moral Law is standing up to the ACLU and so should others, so that the nation's need for God and His law are proclaimed through the land.”

Judge Moore and the Foundation's brief argues that Establishment Clause jurisprudence is in disarray because it substitutes complicated tests that few people can understand for the plain words of the First Amendment. The brief observes that in Ten Commandments cases in particular, the federal courts “have been reduced to becoming judges of artistic design rather than constitutionality” because they contemplate in excruciating detail a display's physical surroundings rather than applying the words of the Establishment Clause to the display. The words of the Establishment Clause prohibit “law[s] respecting an establishment of religion.” A public display of the Ten Commandments is obviously not a law and it does not “establish” a government-sponsored religion of any kind.

In Green v. Haskell County Board of Commissioners , the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Haskell County Oklahoma Board of Commissioners to force the removal of a Ten Commandments display placed on the front lawn of the county courthouse by a citizen of the county. On August 18, 2006 , a federal district judge ruled that the display was constitutional because it was similar to a display in Texas that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 and because it did not violate the Lemon test from Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). The district judge's opinion is refreshingly honest about the chaos in the law concerning public religious displays, but unfortunately the judge perpetuates the chaos by following Supreme Court precedents rather than the language of the First Amendment. The ACLU appealed its defeat to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Foundation for Moral Law, a national non-profit legal organization, is located in Montgomery , Alabama , and is dedicated to restoring the knowledge of God in law and government through two methods: Litigation relating to moral issues and religious liberty cases; and Education consisting of forums for the public and pastors' seminars.

For more information about the Foundation for Moral Law, please visit www.morallaw.org.