A court in Arkansas ruled a Ten Commandments monument erected on state capitol grounds is unconstitutional and must be removed. The decision is now being challenged by Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) in conjunction with the First Liberty Institute. 

The lawsuit was originally filed by The Satanic Temple, Freedom from Religion Foundation, American Humanist Association, and the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers to take the monument down. Griffin and First Liberty are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to reverse the decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District.

“This question has been settled by the Supreme Court — displays that are part of the history and tradition of America, like the Ten Commandments, are presumed to be Constitutional,” said Roger Byron, senior counsel at First Liberty. “The District Court’s opinion tosses aside the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kennedy as a mere suggestion. We are grateful to Attorney General Griffin and his Office for their vigorous defense of the Ten Commandments monument and the Constitution.”

Jeff LeMaster, the communications director for Griffin’s office, noted that the Ten Commandments are not just part of Christian history.

“With Act 1231 of 2015 (the ‘Display Act’), the Arkansas Legislature initiated a Ten Commandments monument to commemorate the Ten Commandments’ role in American and Arkansas legal history,” LeMaster told The Washington Stand. “We will continue to defend that duly enacted law.” 

This comes after controversy over displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools in Arkansas earlier this year. In March, a federal district court issued a permanent injunction in Stinson v. Fayetteville School District No. 1, forbidding their exhibition.

“In Arkansas, we do in fact believe that murder is wrong and stealing is bad,” Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) said in a statement. “It is entirely appropriate to display the Ten Commandments — the basis of all Western law and morality — as a reminder to students, state employees, and every Arkansan who enters a government building, and I look forward to appealing this suit and defending our state’s values.” 

“This question has been settled by the Supreme Court — displays that are part of the history and tradition of America, like the Ten Commandments, are presumed to be Constitutional,” observed Roger Byron, senior counsel at First Liberty. “The District Court’s opinion tosses aside the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kennedy as a mere suggestion. We are grateful to Attorney General Griffin and his Office for their vigorous defense of the Ten Commandments monument and the Constitution.”

According to First Liberty Institute, the Arkansas State Legislature allowed the installation of the monument on the Arkansas State Capitol grounds in 2015. However, not even 24 hours after it was established, it was destroyed after a vandal ran over it with a truck. The monument was then replaced in 2017.

“Permanent Ten Commandments monuments are part of a longstanding national tradition of acknowledging the Commandments’ historical influence on American law. The Supreme Court and this Court have held materially similar monuments are constitutional, and the Display Act drew from those precedents,” read a legal brief filed in the case yesterday. “Yet the district court improperly distinguished those cases. … Properly applied, that test asks whether the Display Act and monument resemble the coercive hallmarks of a religious establishment. They don’t, so there’s no Establishment Clause problem.”