A Kentucky legislator has filed a resolution to reinstall a monument displaying the Ten Commandments on the state Capitol grounds in Frankfort.
Republican Rep. Shane Baker of Somerset says the granite monument was gifted to the Commonwealth by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1971. He says that the text of the religious document has significance to the history and tradition of Kentucky.
“They are displayed prominently throughout our nation’s capital including the United States Supreme Court Building,” Baker said in a statement.
The monument was removed from Capitol grounds in 1988 during a construction project. In 2000, a joint resolution was signed into law that allowed the monument to be reinstalled, though the move was blocked by the ACLU of Kentucky.
Lawyers for the civil liberties union said the monument was a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Corey Shapiro, legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky, says that precedent still stands.
“The first amendment essentially has two clauses that protect the people's religious liberty. One is the establishment clause, which prohibits the government from establishing a religion. The other is a free exercise clause, which provides that people have the ability, and that the government shall not prohibit or in any way impede anybody's free exercise of religion,” Shapiro said.
He says he’s also concerned about the impact the display would have on non-Christian students who visit the Capitol every day looking for representation from their leaders.
“I question that, and I question the policy behind that and what that means to the Muslim kid from northern Kentucky who goes to the Capitol for the first time and is excited to see this representative body that’s supposed to be representing everybody’s views and taking into account all of Kentucky, and their religion is just left out and is not highlighted and some other religion is what this legislature construes as important,” Shapiro said.
In a statement, Baker cites a 2002 resolution from the United States Court of Appeals that affirmed a District Court order prohibiting the enforcement of the 2000 joint resolution. At that time, the monument was returned to the Fraternal Order of Eagles and given to the care of the organization’s Hopkinsville chapter.
In his statement, Baker said that the legal precedent behind the decision to prohibit the monument’s return to Capitol grounds has been abandoned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Shapiro says that he disagrees, and that state lawmakers have a responsibility to maintain neutrality in the case of religious texts.
“Kentuckians are not monolithic. Our government does best when it doesn’t pick or choose which religious monument to promote or which religious text to promote or which version of a religious text to promote,” Shapiro said.
If passed, House Joint Resolution 15 would include the monument’s installation in the three-year improvement project on the New State Capitol grounds.
