McCreary County, Kentucky has been trying to develop an acceptable Ten Commandments monument for its courthouse ever since the US Supreme Court ruled its display unconstitutional in 2005. In 2008, a judge ruled that an effort that included other historical documents still did not escape the clear religious purpose of the exercise and issued a permanent injunction against its display in McCreary County (as well as Pulaski county). Yesterday, a 6th Circuit panel upheld that injunction:
William Sharp, an attorney for the ACLU of Kentucky, which represented the citizens challenging the display, said Clay's analysis of the dispute was correct: Nothing the counties did changed the initial religious intent of the display.
"We think the evidence bore that out," Sharp said.
Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, which represented the two counties, plans to ask for a rehearing before the full 6th Circuit and, if that's not granted, to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
In its ruling, the 2-1 majority found that little of substance had changed, and notes that the passage of time does not by itself erase the religious purpose of the displays, especially considering how county officials have used that time:
Defendants offered no new facts on remand that show that their purpose had changed from the one that the Supreme Court found to violate the Establishment Clause. …[T]he fact that more time has passed since the Supreme Court decision is meaningless in this case, because Defendants have spent the time since the Supreme Court decision continuously seeking to accomplish their initial purpose of posting the Ten Commandments as a religious document. Unlike a case in which the passage of time might have some significance, there has been no dormant period here; Defendants have continuously sought to defend their actions and accomplish what they initially set out to do.
