AJC: Mixed Reaction to Commandments Decision

AJC: Mixed Reaction to Commandments Decision

NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, June 28, 2005

NEW YORK - The American Jewish Committee applauded today's United States Supreme Court decision barring the public display of the Ten Commandments in courthouses. However, AJC was disappointed that the Court, in a separate case, did not bar such displays on public grounds.

"The High Court rightly held unconstitutional the state's religious purpose in displaying the Ten Commandments in courthouses," said Jeffrey Sinensky, AJC's general counsel, referring to the decision in McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.

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AJC filed a brief in McCreary with a coalition of Christian, Jewish and interfaith organizations, emphasizing that "when government attempts to rationalize its display of sacred texts by claiming secular purposes and secular effects, the inevitable tendency is to distort and desacralize the sacred text.'" The case involved the display of the Decalogue, surrounded by secular patriotic texts on county courthouse walls.

In Van Orden v. Perry, a case involving the display of a granite monument of the Decalogue on Texas State Capitol grounds, AJC asserted that "such displays violate the constitutional principle of separation of church and state, and send the message to non-adherents that they are outsiders in their own communities." AJC filed a brief in Van Orden with a coalition of Jewish organizations.

The Supreme Court, however, declined to rule that display unconstitutional.

AJC is disturbed that Justice Scalia, in his concurring opinion in Van Orden, indicated that "there is nothing unconstitutional in a State's favoring religion generally, honoring God through public prayer and acknowledgment, or, in a no proselytizing manner, venerating the Ten Commandments."

A staunch defender of church-state separation as the surest guarantor of religious liberty for all Americans, AJC filed in 1980 an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court opposing the mandatory display of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky public schools. In that case, Stone v. Graham, the High Court recognized the religious nature of the Ten Commandments, stating: "The Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and no legislative recitation of supposed secular purpose can blind us to that fact."

(U.S. Newswire)

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