Oklahoma high court: Ten Commandments shall not remain

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled late yesterday the Ten Commandments monument standing on the north side of the state Capitol grounds must come down. The monument, paid for by the family of an Oklahoma state representative, was installed in 2012.

The ACLU of Oklahoma, which sued on behalf of four plaintiffs, applauded the 7-2 ruling.

“It is the right decision simply because it acknowledges limits on the government’s power to effectively decide what religious edicts are right and wrong,” Brady Henderson, the group’s legal director, told Tulsa World. The justices ruled the monument’s location violated Article 2, Section 5 of Oklahoma’s state constitution, which says in part no public property can be used directly or indirectly for the support of any system of religion.

Tuesday’s ruling is not the first time public displays of the Ten Commandments have come under fire. In 2003, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore defied a federal judge’s order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building. The Alabama Court of the Judiciary voted unanimously to remove Moore from office, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the case. In November 2012, Alabama voters reinstalled Moore as chief justice.

In a simultaneous pair of 2005 rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court barred a framed display of the Ten Commandments in two Kentucky courthouses but allowed a granite monument of the Ten Commandments on the Texas State Capitol grounds to stay. During oral arguments, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the Ten Commandments “is a powerful statement of the covenants that the Lord is making with his people.” Still, in both cases, Justice Ginsburg voted to remove the displays.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said she was disappointed with the ruling. Scott Pruitt, the state’s attorney general, claimed the decision in Prescott v. Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission contradicted previous court rulings, noting the Ten Commandments have historical value as the foundation of Western law. He asked the court to rehear the case, a move that temporarily delays the monument’s removal.

The monument has already taken one hit. On Oct. 23, a man who reportedly told authorities he received orders from Satan drove his vehicle into the 6-foot, 2,400-pound granite display, smashing it to pieces. Workers replaced it with an exact replica on Jan. 8.