Trial: Ten Commandments: Judge will rule on monument this month

defending the First Amendment against the Christian right ...

... because if Jews don't speak out, they'll think we don't mind

Web JewsOnFirst

Optional Member Code

Please email us
(click here)
catcher@JewsOnFirst.org

And "bookmark" us at
JewsOnFirst.org

Jews on First
P.O. Box 2283
Rockville MD 20847

310-910-9153

Trial: Ten Commandments: Judge will rule on monument this month

Outside the courtroom, both sides expressed confidence in their arguments.

By Michael Smith, Tulsa World, May 3, 2006

MUSKOGEE -- A federal civil trial determining the constitutionality of a Ten Commandments monument on the Haskell County Courthouse lawn in Stigler ended Tuesday with the judge saying he would issue a ruling this month.

Testimony wrapped up in the trial that began Monday, and outside the courtroom both sides expressed confidence in their arguments.

The American Civil Liberties Union and a Stigler resident sued the Haskell County Commission for approving the erection of a granite monument featuring the commandments.

The ACLU action alleges that the marker promotes one religion -- the Christian faith -- to the exclusion of all others, and it is seeking to have the monument removed.

County leaders and their attorneys contend the monument is part of a historical display similar to multiple other monuments outside the courthouse, including those recognizing war veterans and the Choctaw Tribe.

County Commissioner Henry Few testified during the trial that the Ten Commandments, as paraphrased on the stone from the King James version of the Bible, "would be my personal feelings, in my heart."

But he stressed that the display -- with the Mayflower Compact etched on the other side -- was approved because it is historically significant to the U.S. and Haskell County.

Sharon Nichols, a Stigler resident and ACLU member, testified Tuesday that a 2004 phone call she placed to then-Commissioner Sam Cole to oppose the monument as an excessive entanglement of government with religion made her feel "disenfranchised."

Nichols said she called Cole -- who died in March -- to "register my opposition in the strongest possible terms," and that Cole asked her "Are you a Christian?"

Nichols testified that Cole asked the question again, which she "thought was irrelevant" to their discussion, and then "He said, 'I don't talk to people who aren't Christians,' and he hung up on me."

She said it was clear, as a constituent, that her county representative discriminated against her because their beliefs differ.

"I felt shut out," Nichols testified.

Nichols was the ACLU's last witness. Lawyers with the Alliance Defense Fund, defending the Haskell County government, called only Mitch Worsham, Cole's longtime foreman who is currently serving in his place as commissioner.

Worsham testified that he had never seen Cole "refuse to help someone because they weren't a Christian."

Defense attorney Kevin Theriot asked Nichols about a deposition she gave in February, in which she said she had considered asking the commissioners for approval of a courthouse monument of the Humanist Manifesto.

The document, which appears to originate from the 1930s, "is an attempt to broadly define the principles of how people treat one another," ACLU attorney Michael Salem said.

He said Nichols said her religious belief was that of a naturalist, or a "Bright," which he understood to be "people who believe there's a natural explanation of how the universe was created."

When asked outside the courtroom about the possibility of Nichols requesting a Humanist Manifesto monument be placed on the Haskell County Courthouse lawn, Theriot said, "I think that they would consider something like that."

"Something with verses from the Quran -- I think (the commissioners) would consider that, too," Theriot said, furthering the thought that the Ten Commandments marker should not be considered exclusionary in religious thought.

Such a submission should be made by a Haskell County resident, of historical significance, aesthetically pleasing and contain no obscenity, he said.

"The commissioners aren't going to deny something based on someone's views. It's illegal to do so," Theriot said. "(That's) the same reason they didn't deny Mike Bush," the lay pastor who approached the commissioners with the Ten Commandments proposal in September 2004.

Defense attorney Joel Oster had previously said that Bush could possibly have sued the county if his request had been denied.

U.S. District Judge Ronald A. White told the attorneys that any written arguments must be presented within the next 10 days, and that he planned to rule on the matter this month.

The case was the first filed in Oklahoma following two divided U.S. Supreme Court decisions last summer. The high court ruled that such displays are not inherently unconstitutional and should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Fair Use Statement: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.