Court Decisions on the Ten Commandments
Promoting Religion and Religious Doctrines
Should displays of the Ten Commandments be allowed in public buildings? Should large monuments be erected on the grounds of courthouses or legislative buildings? Should there be posters of the Ten Commandments in schools and other municipal buildings? Some argue that they are part of our legal history, but others contend that they are inherently religious and, therefore, cannot be allowed.
Glassroth v. Moore (2002)
Roy Moore installed a huge granite monument to the Ten Commandments in Alabama,
saying that their presence would help to remind people that God was sovereign over them
and over the laws of the nation. A District Court, however, found that his actions were an
obvious violation of the separation of church and state, ordering him to remove the monument.
O'Bannon v. Indiana Civil Liberties Union (2001)
The Supreme Court refused to hear a case about a large monument in Indiana which would
have included the Ten Commandments. What was the original 7th Circuit Court decision,
and why did they reach that conclusion? What does this mean for future cases?
Books v. Elkhart (2000)
Are the Ten Commandments a secular or a religious document? Just how far can a
government go in displaying the Ten Commandments? Can large, expensive monuments to the
Ten Commandments be erected on public property by arguing that they played a role in
the development of secular laws and, hence, that the monument itself is secular?
DiLorento v. Downey USD (1999)
The Supreme Court let stand, without comment, a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision
that a school district was within its rights to discontinue a program of paid
advertising signs on school grounds rather than accept a sign promoting the Ten Commandments.
Stone v. Graham (1980)
In their only actual ruling on this issue, the Supreme Court ruled that a Kentucky law
requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in each public school classroom in the
state to be unconstitutional.
