50K For Posting Ten Commandments
Posted on January 13, 2007
Another example of how the ACLU uses your tax dollars.
According to an ACLU news release, in September the Federal Court declared that the County Commission had violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment when they posted the Ten Commandments in the courthouse. In the settlement approved last night, the County Commission accepted the Court’s ruling and agreed to pay attorneys fees and costs.
Hedy Weinberg, ACLU-TN executive director, explained that “ACLU-TN brought the lawsuit only after we were unable to convince the Rutherford County Commission to protect religious freedom for all their residents. The Constitution guarantees that individuals, not the government, make choices about when, where, if and to whom to pray. Were government to deny individuals the right to practice a particular religious faith or to post the Ten Commandments in their homes, businesses or places of worship, ACLU-TN would fight to protect citizens’ right to promote their religious beliefs and practice their religious faiths.”
George Barrett, ACLU-TN cooperating attorney, added: “We are disappointed that public funds had to be used which could have been spent on public education because of the conduct of the county commissioners in violation of the State and Federal Constitutions. Had they just taken the advice of their attorney that would have saved the taxpayers $50,000.”
In April 2002, on behalf of a coalition of concerned residents, ACLU-TN filed a lawsuit challenging the posting of the Ten Commandments in “The Foundation of American Law and Government” display in the Rutherford County Courthouse. The display in dispute included: the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the state constitution, and a drawing and explanation of Lady Justice.
In the lawsuit, ACLU-TN argues that the posting of the Ten Commandments — with or without other accompanying documents — violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits government from promoting or supporting religious doctrine.
Same ol’ debate different town, but this was an interesting twist at the end.
A day after voting to pay up for wrongly placing the Ten Commandments in the County Courthouse, Commissioner Mike Sparks is working to post the biblical laws in homes and businesses around the county.
Sparks said he’s spent about $125 to have 400 copies of the Ten Commandments printed so that people can post them on their own. He’s given many of the copies out to local businesses to distribute to their customers.
“This is one way, I guess, I can personally vent some frustration,” Sparks said.
The Rutherford County Commission — including Sparks — agreed Thursday to pay $50,000 as part of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU won a lawsuit against the county Sept. 14 when the U.S. District Court found that the commission had violated the separation of church and state derived from the First Amendment by posting the Ten Commandments in the courthouse in 2002.
“We may lose putting it on the courthouse wall, but we can win through the rest of this county,” Sparks said.
Sparks said there is a link between the lack of spirituality and morality and a slew of societal problems, including the marriage rate, crime and poverty.
“These are the common basics of morality, going back to the Ten Commandments,” Sparks said. “That’s the basis of all our laws.”
(Glib Note: Check out what I emphasized in the first block quote. This case was intiated in 2002 and the judge had held it pending the decision in McCreary, which eventually forced the Decalogue to come down in KY. However, the companion decision that same day at the SCOTUS, Van Orden, allowed the Tem Commandments to stay based on a different set of facts — namely that it was part of a larger display of historic documents. Sounds here like the facts in this case were substantially more similar to Van Orden than McCreary and had a decent chance of winning had the county not mailed it in. This was a winnable case for the county. Sounds like they just got worn down.)
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, Church And State, News
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Interesting. I thought we held the losing party morally responsible.
Rutherford County knew, or should have known, that they were engaged in unconstitutional behavior by posting a religious monument on county property.
They continued in that course of action even though they knew the consequences of losing a court fight.
Now they lost. If you want to blame someone for giving $50,000 to the ACLU, look to the commissioners and those who urged them to continue their illegal actions.
The posting of the Ten Commandments, along with other sources of the law, in the Rutherford County Courthouse, should not be regarded as unconstitutional. A mural on the ceiling of the New York County Supreme Court courthouse does the same. To say, as William Roha does, that Rutherford County should have known that the posting was unconstitutional is wrong. Rutherford County may have lost at the district court level, but that does not mean that the County would have lost at the appellate level. The problem is that if in the end the County lost, the ACLU would get attorneys fees under the civil rights statute awarding attorneys fees to the prevailing party. What the County decided was to settle rather than run the risk of a larger attorneys fees award to the ACLU. By this in terrorem effect, erroneous district court decisions are not overturned. The issue of the posting of the Ten Commandments needs to be clarified by the U.S. Supreme Court. Its last two decisions are confused and confusing. Litigants such as Rutherford County should not be deterred from litigating the issue because of the attorney fees statute. Legislation disallowing the ACLU from obtaining attorneys fees in these kinds of cases has been proposed and is long overdue to be enacted.