6th Circuit Overturns Rogue ACLU Judge's Injunction Against Courthouse Display of Ten Commandments

The federal 6th Circuit Court of Appeals appears to have a problem with frisky federal district judges flouting its precedents, not unlike the segregationist district judges who defied Brown v. Board of Education for more than a decade.

Although the 6th Circuit (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee) held in 2005 that it is Constitutionally permissible to display the Ten Commandments on public premises, a district judge entered the American Civil Liberties Union's requested order to permanently enjoin Grayson County from displaying the Ten Commandments on the second floor of its courthouse.

The ACLU is on a losing streak with these cases, according to Liberty Counsel's Matthew Staver, and it has never requested certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the matter. Why not? Staver suggests they know they would lose, and that precedent would then be binding nationwide.

There is something else at work here: the ACLU is bringing its suits against cash-strapped rural counties that can't afford to pay buttoned-down Constitutional litigators to fight these guerrilla wars against the ACLU, which is larglely staffed by "volunteer" attorneys from large law firms that discharge their pro bono obligations by dispatching its associates to the ACLU.

To meet the bar association's pro bono obligation by sending your underlings to the ACLU to haze some earnest but underfunded rural Christians is a pretty nauseating example of "malicious compliance," don't you think? Congratulations, Dewey,Stickham & Howe, you're really "giving back." I guess acting as guardian ad litem for a foster child just wouldn't give quite the adrenaline rush you're looking for. Oh, and no headlines. You wouldn't want to waste your associates on THAT kind of pro bono.

This particular case had a happy ending, but the ACLU almost certainly intimidates at least a dozen small, precarious county governments for every Grayson or Mercer County that gets on the horn to nonprofit defenders like Staver or Jay Sekulow. This is the same strategy the ACLU uses to suppress Christian speech at sporting events and graduation ceremonies. If anybody fights them all the way through the federal courts, the ACLU & similar totalitarians have a losing case. But most people don't want to fight, or they don't know they can fight, so they just fold. This is the genius of the ACLU.

Display with Ten Commandments Ruled Constitutional by Court of Appeals

(LifeSiteNews.com) - On Thursday the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a display including the Ten Commandments in Leitchfield, KY, on the second floor of Grayson County's courthouse.

The display, entitled "Foundations of American Law and Government," includes the Ten Commandments, Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, Star-Spangled Banner, National Motto, and a picture of Lady Justice, with an explanation of the significance of each. The display is intended to showcase a sampling of documents that played a significant role in the development of the legal and governmental system of the United States.

The majority wrote in their decision that they found that "the evidence in the record does not demonstrate that Grayson County acted with an impermissible purpose or that the inclusion of the Ten Commandments in the Foundations Display has the impermissible effect of endorsing religion."

Mathew Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, presented the winning oral argument on behalf of Grayson County in April 2009. The case began in 2002 when the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Grayson County, and a federal judge ruled against the display.

In 2005, the same Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the same Ten Commandments display in Mercer County, KY. The Sixth Circuit governs Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Michigan. Notwithstanding this identical and controlling precedent, the federal judge entered a permanent injunction against the Grayson County display. Thursday's decision, however, reversed and upheld the display.

"The Ten Commandments are as much at home in a display about the foundation of law as stars and stripes are to the American flag," said Staver. "The Ten Commandments are part of the fabric of our country and helped shape the law.

"It defies common sense to remove a recognized symbol of law from a court of law. The ACLU might not like our history and might run from it, but the fact remains that the Ten Commandments shaped our laws and may be displayed in a court of law."
Staver said that he doesn't believe the ACLU will ask the Supreme Court to review the case. "The ACLU has been running from the Supreme Court since 2005," he said, "and has taken loss after loss on the Ten Commandments."

Since 2005, when Staver argued in favor of the same Foundations Display for McCreary and Pulaski Counties, four federal courts of appeal have upheld the Ten Commandments. Three of these four involve the same Foundations Display. Since 2005, every federal court of appeals which has addressed Ten Commandments displays has upheld them. The ACLU has not won a Ten Commandments case at the court of appeals level since 2005.

Hell to Pay: Intolerant Homosexuals Deploy State Government Against Principled Christians

There will be Hell to pay if churches in New Jersey, home of disgraced bisexual former Gov. Jim McGreevey, fail to accomodate and cater to homosexual "civil union" ceremonies on church premises.

Charlie Butts wrote in OneNewsNow.com last week that a Methodist Church camp has lost to the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights in a federal district court after two lesbians complained to the government agency that the church camp resisted their demand.

Lesbian couple wins suit against Methodist camp
Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow
The Methodist Church has lost a round over homosexual unions.

In March 2007 the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association refused to permit two lesbians -- Harriet Bernstein, 67, and Luisa Paster, 61 -- to stage a civil union ceremony at the church-owned Boardwalk Pavilion, and returned their check for $250. Subsequently, says Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, the lesbians filed a legal complaint against group. However, Association officials countered that the decision was based on their religious beliefs.

"That didn't make any difference to the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights," says Staver of the group that issued its determination on Monday. "They said there's no First Amendment defense here and in fact the church violated the public accommodation law in New Jersey," the attorney notes. "After New Jersey adopted the same-sex civil union law, no longer could the church allow its facility to be used in ministry to the public because to do so would open them up to these same-sex civil unions."

Staver says that puts the church in a quandary. "The church has really been put in the situation where the clash between the same-sex civil unions and the religious liberty is forcing the church to either violate its own religious freedom or open up its facility to the community," he points out.

The church lost a federal court decision dealing with the same matter, and that case is on appeal. The Camp Meeting Association is represented in the case by the Alliance Defense Fund, which has argued that a Christian organization has a constitutional right to use its facilities in a manner consistent with its beliefs.

Founded in 1869, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association is affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

Showdown Between ACLU and Liberty Counsel Over Gideon Bible Distribution

The Liberty Counsel public interest law firm issued a press release today about Roark v. South Iron R-1 School District, which has gone up on appeal from a hostile District Court ruling that would prohibit the distribution of Bibles from a stationary table to voluntary recipients.

St. Louis, MO – Today, a three-member panel of the federal court of appeals enters the fray in a case arising out of the distribution of Gideon Bibles to school children. Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, is presenting oral argument on behalf of the South Iron School District (“District”) and its equal access policy, in the case of Roark v. South Iron R-1 School District.

The District policy permits outside groups to distribute literature from a stationary table, irrespective of whether the literature is secular or religious. Under this policy, an outside group may offer Bibles to students who wish to take them in the same manner as other nonreligious groups are permitted to distribute secular literature.

In September 2006, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against the District to stop the Gideons from providing Bibles to public school students. Federal district Judge Catherine Perry issued an order prohibiting the distribution of any Bible, which she derisively described as an “instrument of religion.”

The District then adopted a written equal access policy that treats the distribution of secular and religious literature outside of class on an equal basis. Outside groups may apply to distribute literature from stationary tables in two designated locations. The literature cannot be distributed in the classroom, nor can school officials be involved.

Judge Perry also ruled the District’s equal access policy unConstitutional, saying that under the content-neutral policy it is possible that the Bible could be distributed, and that, she said, would be unconstitutional. The ruling presented a novel (and unConstitutional) theory that a private third party (like the ACLU) must have the opportunity to veto the distribution request of the private applicant. The veto power, the judge wrote, must be provided to veto religious, but not secular, literature.

Matt Staver commented on today’s hearing: “The Bible cannot be singled out for special penalties like contraband. How ironic that in America, until recent times, the Bible formed the basis of education, and now its mere presence is radioactive in the opinion of some judges.

The Founders never envisioned such open hostility toward the Christian religion as we see today in some venues. To single out the Bible alone for discriminatory treatment harkens back to the Dark Ages. America deserves better. Our Constitution should be respected, not disregarded.

Audio of the oral argument will be made available on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals website at http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/oralargs/oaFrame.html, and there will be abundant links from Liberty Counsel's website at http://www.lc.org/.