Question #1: Is it constitutional to display the Ten Commandments in a government building?
Answer: Yes.
Question #2: Is it constitutional to display the Ten Commandments in a government building by:
A. Making the Ten Commandments a huge monument that overwhelms and crowds everything else at the main entrance to the building.Answer: No.B. Ignoring all the local regulations about changes in the government buildings, such as not informing the building superintendent or fellow justices who have proper jurisdiction in the review to changes to this building.
C. Claiming publicly in front of TV cameras that the reason the Ten Commandments monuments being placed in the building is to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian God by the state, and that any other gods, such as the god worship by Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Shintoists is not the same as the Judeo-Christian God.
D. Testifying under oath in federal court, that the reason for the monument is to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian God, and that non-Judeo-Christian religions are not religions recognized by the state, but just "faiths."
E. Ignoring legal procedures, such as failing to file motions and ask for injunctive relief in timely fashion because the First Amendment does not apply to the states.
Thats exactly what the federal judge in this case has said.
Based on the evidence presented during a week-long trial and for the reasons that follow, this court holds that the evidence is overwhelming and the law is clear that the Chief Justice violated the Establishment Clause.But, in announcing this holding today, the court believes it is important to clarify at the outset that the court does not hold that it is improper in all instances to display the Ten Commandments in government buildings; nor does the court hold that the Ten Commandments are not important, if not one of the most important, sources of American law.
Rather the court's limited holding, as will [*3] be explained below in more detail, is that the Chief Justice's actions and intentions in this case crossed the Establishment Clause line between the permissible and the impermissible.
Using Lemon v. Kurtzman the judge concluded that this:
display of the monument fails this test, frequently called the Lemon test, in two ways: (1) his fundamental, if not sole, purpose in displaying the monument was non-secular; and (2) the monument's primary effect advances religion.
Moore is probably an idiot (I live far away from Alabama and don't know anything about him).
But the line of decisions beginning with Everson which repeal the free exercise clause are worse, and will eventually have to be overturned either from within the Article III courts or by some other mechanism.