{"id":1926,"date":"2010-01-15T17:13:16","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T17:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2010\/01\/court-says-ky-courthouse-can-k.php"},"modified":"2010-01-15T17:13:16","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T17:13:16","slug":"court-says-ky-courthouse-can-k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/01\/court-says-ky-courthouse-can-k","title":{"rendered":"Court Says Ky. Courthouse Can Keep 10 Commandments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday (Jan. 14) that a Kentucky county courthouse can keep its Ten Commandments display, overturning a lower court ruling.<br \/>\nThe &#8220;Foundations of American Law and Government Display,&#8221; at a Grayson County, Ky., courthouse included the biblical laws along with eight other historical documents. It was challenged by two men who thought its placement violated the Constitution&#8217;s prohibition against the government establishing a religion.<br \/>\nIn a 2-1 decision, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, saying the display presented an educational, not religious message.<br \/>\n&#8220;There is nothing about the setting of the display that would be viewed as encouraging or lending itself to prayer, meditation or other religious activity,&#8221; wrote Circuit Judge David W. McKeague for the majority.<br \/>\nHe said the men challenging the display, who were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, &#8220;failed to present evidence sufficient to demonstrate that an objective observer could have concluded that the county&#8217;s asserted secular purpose was a sham.&#8221;<br \/>\nIn a dissenting opinion, Circuit Judge Karen Nelson Moore, disagreed with that conclusion: &#8220;The evidence &#8230; clearly indicates that the predominant purpose was to post the Ten Commandments as a religious text and that the additional, `Historical Documents&#8217; were added merely to avoid violating the Constitution.&#8221;<br \/>\nMathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, who represented the county, hailed the decision. &#8220;It defies common sense to remove a recognized symbol of law from a court of law,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\n<em>&#8212; Adelle M. Banks<br \/>\nCopyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday (Jan. 14) that a Kentucky county courthouse can keep its Ten Commandments display, overturning a lower court ruling. The &#8220;Foundations of American Law and Government Display,&#8221; at a Grayson County, Ky., courthouse included the biblical laws along with eight other historical documents. It was challenged by two&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Court Says Ky. Courthouse Can Keep 10 Commandments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/01\/court-says-ky-courthouse-can-k\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Court Says Ky. Courthouse Can Keep 10 Commandments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(RNS) A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday (Jan. 14) that a Kentucky county courthouse can keep its Ten Commandments display, overturning a lower court ruling. The &#8220;Foundations of American Law and Government Display,&#8221; at a Grayson County, Ky., courthouse included the biblical laws along with eight other historical documents. It was challenged by two&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/01\/court-says-ky-courthouse-can-k\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-15T17:13:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mconsoli\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Court Says Ky. Courthouse Can Keep 10 Commandments","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/01\/court-says-ky-courthouse-can-k","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Court Says Ky. Courthouse Can Keep 10 Commandments","og_description":"(RNS) A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday (Jan. 14) that a Kentucky county courthouse can keep its Ten Commandments display, overturning a lower court ruling. The &#8220;Foundations of American Law and Government Display,&#8221; at a Grayson County, Ky., courthouse included the biblical laws along with eight other historical documents. It was challenged by two&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/01\/court-says-ky-courthouse-can-k","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2010-01-15T17:13:16+00:00","author":"mconsoli","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/01\/court-says-ky-courthouse-can-k","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/01\/court-says-ky-courthouse-can-k","name":"Court Says Ky. 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