Ten Commandments monument to return as Kentucky gov declines to sign or veto
Legal fight over display began a quarter-century ago
Government support for the Ten Commandments won another legal victory today as a Kentucky legislative resolution calling for a monument to be returned to the state Capitol grounds went into effect.
The resolution became law after Kentucky’s centrist governor, Democrat Andy Beshear, declined to either sign or veto it by today’s deadline. Beshear appears to have made no public announcement of the reasons for his decision to withhold action.
While some state legislatures have debated in recent years to require the posting of the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms, and such a requirement in Louisiana remains tied up in the courts, Kentucky’s decision appears to be the first time in recent memory that a legislature will have added such a monument at the statewide seat of government. The decision comes at a time as the Christian nationalist movement is seeking to reinforce its disputed stance that the Ten Commandments paid a vital role in the development of the U.S. legal system.
The convoluted history of the monument began in 1971 when the Kentucky Aerie of the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated it for placement on the Capitol grounds, where it remained until it was put into storage sometime during the 1980s due to a construction project. Kentucky lawmakers sought to return the monument to a site near the Capitol in 2000 — but the step immediately faced legal challenges.
A trial court found that government placement of the monument would violate the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, a decision affirmed by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2002. Consequently, the state returned the monument to the Eagles, who put it on display in Hopkinsville, Ky.
A U.S. Supreme Court decision, Van Orden v. Perry, allowed the placement of a similar monument on government grounds in the Texas capital of Austin in 2005. But for reasons that are unclear, it wasn’t until this year that Kentucky lawmakers made a successful effort to pass legislation to get the monument back to Louisville.
The resolution to put the monument on permanent display, House Joint Resolution 15, was passed by the Kentucky House of Representatives by a 79-13 vote on Feb. 19. The Senate approved the resolution on a 32-6 vote on March 13.
The monument features a highly edited version of the Ten Commandments, one loosely derived from the King James Version of the Bible.
A coalition of Kentucky religious leaders made a last-ditch effort to get Beshear to veto the resolution, but to no avail. The 79 religious representatives, including mostly mainline and Baptist pastors but also several rabbis and other Jewish leaders, sent a letter to Beshear stating that the planned placement of the monument is “especially troubling.” They said the monument “undercuts the religious equality Kentuckians share and threatens to use the Ten Commandments as a symbol of exclusion and religious intolerance.”
The letter also said:
The text of the monument at issue in HJR 15 is not universal or inclusive of all faith traditions. Indeed, the monument’s version of the Ten Commandments does not exist in any translation of the Bible, nor do the Ten Commandments as such hold religious meaning for hundreds of thousands or more of Kentuckians who are Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Unitarian Universalist, or who practice other religions or no religion at all. Matters of faith should remain in the family and in faith communities, and not in the hands of government officials.
Meanwhile, supporters of the monument celebrated today. Vic Jeffries, trustee of Fraternal Order of Eagles Aerie 3423 in Hopkinsville, said in a statement provided by the First Liberty Institute:
We are thrilled to return the Ten Commandments monument to the state and have it restored to the Capitol grounds, its historic location. The Eagles have donated over 100 Ten Commandments monuments to state and local governments over the years, and we’re glad to have ours back where it belongs.