Just days before the US Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of placing the Ten Commandments on public property, a federal district judge in Baltimore upheld a Ten Commandments monument in a city park in Frederick, Maryland. In this case, in the face of a challenge to the monument in 2002, the city had sold the monument and the strip of park land on which it stood to the Fraternal Order of Eagles. According to a report in today's Baltimore Sun, Judge Quarles opinion held that no reasonable observer, aware of the history and context, would see the monument as a government endorsement of religion.
UPDATE: The full opinion in Chambers v. City of Frederick is now available.
