More Litigation on Kentucky Statehouse 10 Commandments

The legal sparring continues in Kentucky's efforts to install a Ten Commandments monument on its Capitol grounds. In March, Governor Ernie Fletcher signed a law authorizing the monument. (See prior posting.) However, in 2000, in Adland v. Russ, a federal district court had issued an injunction prohibiting a 10 Commandments display that the state legislature had authorized by joint resolution. So yesterday the ACLU went back to court claiming that placing the monument on government property, under Kentucky's new legislation, will violate that injunction. The governor's office says it has no intention of moving ahead until it gets the injunction lifted. ACLU attorney David Friedman says, "We hope to persuade the court that the legislature's newly discovered 'historical purpose' for erecting the monument is a thinly disguised sham for its original religious purpose." Developments are reported by the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Louisville Courier-Journal.