Ten Commandments battle rages on

The battle for the Ten Commandments did not end at Alabama’s state courthouse last fall, says a public-interest legal group that is defending three cases around the nations in hearings this month.

“What happened in the case with Judge Roy Moore in Alabama did not mark the end of the road for such displays,” Benjamin Bull, chief counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which is financing the cases litigated by the American Center for Law and Justice.

A hearing took place in Wisconsin this week and cases in Nebraska and Utah will be heard next week.

As WorldNetDaily reported, the Alabama Supreme Court stripped Moore of his chief justice position for defiance of a federal judge’s order to remove a Ten Commandments monument at the state courthouse.

“The Ten Commandments are a deeply rooted part of this nations history,” Bull said. “None of the monuments involved in these cases represent a government endorsement of religion. It is the ACLU and other groups like them that have a problem with these monuments, not the vast majority of the American people.”

In Wisconsin, a court ordered the Fraternal Order of Eagles to turn over to the city of La Crosse a Ten Commandments monument and parcel of land the organization purchased from the city last year. Oral arguments took place in the 7th Circuit on Wednesday.

In Nebraska, the local ACLU sued the city of Plattsmouth claiming a Fraternal Order of Eagles monument that includes the Ten Commandments in an isolated corner of a large city park violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from establishing a religion.

A panel of the 8th Circuit narrowly decided in favor of the ACLU but granted an appeal for the entire court to hear the case. Oral arguments will be heard Sept. 15.

In Utah, an obscure religious group sued the city of Duchesne to force it to remove its display of the Ten Commandments unless the city permits the group to erect its own “Seven Aphorisms” monument nearby.

After the suit was filed, the city sold the Ten Commandments monument and the land on which it sits to the family that donated the monument in the late 1970s, a move contested by the plaintiffs. A status conference is scheduled in federal district court Sept. 15.