Religion News Service
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 30, 2005: The U.S. Supreme Court’s ambiguous, split decisions on Ten Commandments displays has left everyone from community activists to lawyers grappling over what happens next. One religious leader sees a legal opening to erect scores of new Ten Commandments monuments across the country while an atheist group says the rulings give it license to push for a monument at the Texas Capitol with “an anti-Bible passage.” In a nation with hundreds, if not thousands, of Ten Commandments displays, many agree the rulings give little specific guidance to communities wondering whether they are lawful or unlawful. Since the justices did not establish an overarching principle, battles are likely to persist on a case-by-case, community-by-community basis. “It was never clear before (Monday) what you could and could not do with regard to the Ten Commandments and it’s still not clear,” said Francis Manion, senior counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative Christian law firm.
Despite the confusion, some community activists — religious and nonreligious — are taking steps to move ahead. The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Washington-based Christian Defense Coalition, announced plans to try to place displays similar to the monument at the Texas Capitol in 100 cities and towns across the country within the next year. He made the announcement Monday in Boise, Idaho, where an interfaith community network’s efforts to get a monument returned to public property have been boosted by the ruling.
Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation, will now work with local groups to seek permission to erect a monument in honor of freethinkers on the same Texas Capitol grounds where the Ten Commandments are displayed. “We can stick our anti-Bible passage up,” she said in an interview. “We will plan to fight fire with fire.”