This is one of many reasons why we need someone on the Supreme Court who will not "read into" the constitution.
Not being satisfied with removing God from the courtroom, the ACLU is trying to interpret the court's approval as only for long standing displays. There is no end to these weasels and their nefarious schemes. And notice, how they extorted $150,000 in legal fees for their treachery.
A decision by Barrow County commissioners to pull down a copy of the Ten Commandments from the wall of its courthouse could refocus a civil liberties group on a display in Henry County, an attorney for the group said Thursday.
In 2003, the American Civil Liberties Union sued to have the Barrow display removed from a breezeway in the county courthouse. Last year, Henry County commissioners accepted a similar framed copy from the League of the South, and hung it along side six historical documents in the historic courthouse in McDonough.
Earlier this week, Barrow commissioners agreed to take the display down, ending the lawsuit and agreed pay the complainant, a John Doe, $1 and the ACLU $150,000 in legal expenses.
"The Ten Commandments display in Henry County is now on our radar screen," said Gerry Weber, the legal director for the ACLU in Atlanta.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month on several cases of Ten Commandments displays, limiting where they are appropriate.
Henry County commissioners believe they are on firm legal footing because their display is surrounded by six historical documents, including the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta.
"These are foundation documents," said Henry County Commissioner Gerry Adams.
"The Ten Commandments says 'thou shalt not kill' - it's illegal to kill," he said. "What more appropriate place to put these documents, including the Ten Commandments, than where laws are adjudicated?"
Courthouse visitor John Hopkins agreed.
"I think the majority of the citizens of this county, this state, this country agree it's an important part of the make-up of this country," said Hopkins, a DeKalb resident who was at the courthouse Thursday.
The ACLU's Weber would not say whether the organization is planning a challenge to the Henry display, but said it interprets the recent high court decision to mean only long-standing displays, such as the one in the court's chambers, are allowable under the law.
"Unless a Ten Commandments display is an antiquated old document that's been there for decades and decades, it's subject to challenge," he said.
In 2003 a federal court ordered then-Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore to remove a two-ton granite Ten Commandments display from the courthouse there. He was removed from office after he refused to remove the display.
Later, the ACLU sued on behalf of a John Doe to have the Borrow display taken down.
Last July, the group League of the South donated a framed copy of the Commandments to Henry County, and asked that it be displayed in the courthouse. It was a move meant to test commissioners, some of whom were facing a bitter primary election that month.
Later, the group held a rally on the McDonough Square that was attended by supporters of the display, some Barrow County commissioners and the group Ten Commandments Georgia, which was collecting money to fight the ACLU's case in Barrow.
No Henry commissioners attended the rally.
Georgia League of the South Chairman Ray McBerry, a Henry resident, believes the display here will stand because it's part of a "historical display."
"The decision that was handed down by the Supreme Court two weeks ago makes it crystal clear that the type of display we have in Henry County is absolutely untouchable," he said.
From henryherald.com.
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