The Supreme Court will listen to arguments tomorrow on whether the presence of the Ten Commandments on government property violates the U.S. Constitution.
The justices will weigh two cases, one involving a 6-foot-high Ten Commandments monument on state grounds near the Texas Capitol and the other in which the Ten Commandments are posted on the walls of two state courthouses in Kentucky.
Both cases center on the question of whether the First Amendment’s “establishment of religion” clause makes such symbolism — which some say is bluntly religious and others say is merely historical — illegal when it appears on government property.
The Texas monument is not an endorsement of the Ten Commandments, says Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who will argue on behalf of the state in favor of allowing the monument to remain between the state Capitol and state Supreme Court in Austin, where it has stood since 1961.
The monument is “commemorating the historical role of the Ten Commandments in the United States,” said Mr. Abbott, who maintained that public interest in the matter has become so intense that he held a press conference on his position yesterday.
The case stems from a lawsuit filed by Thomas Van Orden, a homeless Austin man seeking the monument’s removal on the grounds that it is an unconstitutional establishment of religion by the state.
Mr. Van Orden reportedly has lived on the streets since losing his law business to a malpractice claim and his family to depression in the mid-1990s. He is said to have taken interest in the monument after passing it on daily walks to the state law library.
The library, a few blocks from the Capitol, was where he later prepared his case filings. He appealed to the Supreme Court after personally arguing the case before U.S. District Court and federal appeals court judges. He lost both times.
Tomorrow’s oral argument will be made by Duke University law professor and First Amendment scholar Erwin Chemerinsky.
Mr. Chemerinsky said the core of his argument “is that the Ten Commandments are profoundly religious and to put them between the state Capitol and the state Supreme Court violates the establishment clause.”
“The Supreme Court has said the government can’t endorse religion,” he said. “The Supreme Court has said that putting the Ten Commandments on state property is a direct violation of the Constitution.”
The Supreme Court declined to hear a separate appeal last year from Roy Moore, who was ejected as Alabama Supreme Court chief justice in 2003 after overseeing the installation of a Ten Commandments monument, then disobeying his own court’s order to remove it.
In other business yesterday, the Supreme Court said it would use a lawsuit filed by two Virginia apartment renters against a Texas-based corporate landlord with Virginia subsidiaries to clarify when plaintiffs can sue in federal or state court.
Federal rules allow a defendant to move a case from state courts, which tend to make larger payouts in class-action cases, to federal courts when the two parties are citizens of different states and the claimed damages exceed $75,000.
The justices also:
• Heard arguments on whether foreign cruise lines sailing in U.S. waters must comply with a federal disabilities law requiring better access for passengers in wheelchairs.
• Said they will consider whether a whistleblower prosecutor can sue his former employers for retaliation.
• This article was based in part on wire-service reports.
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