(LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas ruled on Monday that six Arkansas public schools may not be required to display the Ten Commandments despite its duly-enacted law requiring schools to do so.
Signed into law last April, Act 573 requires every public school to display, in a “conspicuous place,” a “durable poster or framed copy of a historical representation of the Ten Commandments.” It does not compel any recitation, affirmation, discussion, or any other form of acknowledgement or interaction with it on the part of staff or students.
Nevertheless, a group of parents sued, and Judge Timothy Brooks ruled that the “only reason to display a sacred, religious text in every classroom is to proselytize to children.” Therefore, he wrote, “Act 573 must be permanently enjoined. Failing to do so would violate the Establishment Clause rights of all Arkansas public-school children and their parents and also violate plaintiffs’ free exercise rights.”
Left-wing secular groups such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the state chapter of the far-left American Civil Liberties Union, and Freedom From Religion Foundation cheered the ruling, though it is not yet clear whether it applies statewide or only to the specific schools that were at issue in the case. Nevertheless, a spokesperson for Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin confirmed his office was “reviewing the opinion and will appeal.”
The U.S. Supreme Court forbade displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools in 1980’s Stone v. Graham, but more recent precedent has eroded that conclusion: 2005’s Van Orden v. Perry, which ruled the Ten Commandments could be displayed on public property because “simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the establishment clause”; and 2019’s American Legion v. American Humanist Association, which upheld the display of a cross at a public veterans memorial park. Neither case specifically concerned schools, but dealt with many of the same legal concepts.
Supporters say that such religious displays are integral to emphasizing the role of faith in America’s formation and prosperity dating back to the nation’s founding and do not constitute an impermissible “establishment of religion.”
The phrase “separation of church and state,” frequently invoked in opposition to religious content on public grounds, is not an official legal clause anywhere in the Declaration of Independence or U.S. Constitution but comes from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association on January 1, 1802, reassuring the group of his belief that “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only & not opinions.”
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State,” Jefferson said in the correspondence.
When taken literally, “separation of church and state” is accurate shorthand for one of the practical effects of the First Amendment: recognizing that churches and the state are two distinct entities, and neither may control the affairs of the other. Today, however, left-wing activists claim that it means religious ideas and values cannot in any way inform, influence, or be recognized by government and that any expression of faith on government time, on government land, or with government resources is illegal, no matter how benign or voluntary. That interpretation is without basis in the words or actions of America’s Founding Fathers, who viewed religion as vital to America’s success and worthy of being recognized in public education.
“In Arkansas, we do in fact believe that murder is wrong and stealing is bad,” responded Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “It is entirely appropriate to display the Ten Commandments — the basis of all Western law and morality — as a reminder to students, state employees, and every Arkansan who enters a government building, and I look forward to appealing this suit and defending our state’s values.”
