WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Monday that displayingthe Ten Commandments on government property is constitutionally permissible insome cases but not in others. A pair of 5-4 decisions left future disputes onthe contentious church-state issue to be settled case-by-case.
“The court has found no single mechanical formula thatcan accurately draw the constitutional line in every case,” wrote JusticeStephen G. Breyer.
Breyer was the only justice to vote with the majority inboth cases: One that struck down Ten Commandments displays inside two Kentucky courthouses anda second that allowed a 6-foot granite monument to remain on the grounds of theTexas Capitol.
The court said the key to whether a display isconstitutional hinges on whether there is a religious purpose behind it. Butthe justices acknowledged that question would often be controversial.
“The divisiveness of religion in current public life isinescapable,” wrote Justice David H. Souter.
He said it was important to understand the Constitution’sEstablishment Clause, which requires the government to stay neutral onreligious belief. Questions of such belief, he said are “reserved for theconscience of the individual.”
In both cases, Breyer voted with the majority. In the Kentucky case barringthe courthouse displays, that left him with the court’s more liberal bloc wherehe normally votes. In the Texascase, he wound up making a majority with the more conservative justices.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, oftena swing vote, joined the liberals in both decisions.
The rulings mean thousands of Ten Commandments displaysaround the nation will be validated if their primary purpose is to honour thenation’s legal, rather than religious, traditions. Location also will beconsidered, with wide open lots more acceptable than schoolhouses filled withyoung students.
“It means we’ll litigate cases one at a time fordecades,” said Douglas Laycock, a church-state expert at the University of Texas law school, noting the decisionsprovide little guidance beyond the specific facts of the cases. “The nextcase may depend on who the next justice is, unfortunately,” he said.
In sharply worded opinions, Justice Antonin Scalia said a “dictatorship of ashifting Supreme Court majority” was denying the Ten Commandments’religious meaning. Religion is part of America’straditions, from a president’s invocation of “God bless America” in speeches to thenational motto “In God we trust.”
“Nothing stands behind the court’s assertion thatgovernmental affirmation of the society’s belief in God is unconstitutionalexcept the court’s own say-so,” Scalia wrote.
The justices voting on the prevailing side in the Kentucky case leftthemselves legal wiggle room, saying that some displays inside courthouses