A federal court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union that challenged a display of the Ten Commandments at a Kentucky courthouse.

In the opinion Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Karl S. Forester said the display at the Mercer County courthouse "clearly has a legitimate secular purpose of, including but not limited to, acknowledging the historical influence of the Commandments on the development of this country's laws."

The Lexington, Ky., federal court said "the primary purpose or effect of the display is not to endorse religion as a matter of law."

"This is a tremendous affirmation that the legal attack aimed at removing the Ten Commandments from places like the Mercer County courthouse is legally flawed and without merit," said Francis J. Manion, senior counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, or ACLJ, a public interest law firm that represents Mercer County in the case.

The decision contrasts with one handed down by another federal judge in Kentucky, who ruled that similar displays in Harlan, McCreary and Pulaski counties were unconstitutional, the Associated Press reported.

The ACLU sued Mercer County after the county put up a display at the courthouse that included the Ten Commandments among a series of historical and legal texts, including the Mayflower Compact, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.

Manion said, according to an ACLJ statement, the "court is extremely clear that the display does not violate the Constitution and merely acknowledges the role that the Ten Commandments has played in the formation of our nation's heritage and history."

"This decision is an important victory underscoring the fact that such a display is an acknowledgement of history, not an endorsement of religion," he said.

A different history

Manion said the Mercer County display is similar to those in the other country courthouses, but differs in its history. Harlan, McCreary and Pulaski counties set up a Ten Commandments display then added other documents later. Mercer County posted all the elements of its display at once.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer Coffman ordered in a June 2001 preliminary injunction the removal of Ten Commandments displays at courthouses in McCreary and Pulaski counties and on school property in Harlan County.

Coffman said in her ruling that the history of the Ten Commandments displays "bolstered the reasonable observer's perception of the state endorsement of religion."

The ACLJ says it is involved in more than 15 cases around the country defending public displays of the Ten Commandments.

The federal court's six-page opinion granted an ACLJ motion for summary judgment, which dismisses the suit. Last August, Forester rejected an ACLU motion asking for a preliminary injunction to remove the Commandments because the ACLU had not shown a "likelihood of success on the merits."

Last year, the ACLU of Maryland challenged a Ten Commandments monument erected in a Baltimore public park, maintaining that the First Amendment forbids locating a religious monument on government property.

The ACLU insisted that "placement of a religious monument on governmental property sends a message of endorsement of particular religious faiths, and a message of exclusion to others."

The case was dismissed after the government sold the property.

"It is not an appropriate governmental function to promote what is undeniably a sacred religious text to certain faiths," said the ACLU's Dwight Sullivan in a statement in which the group declared victory in the case.

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