Salt Lake City, USA - The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a judge’s ruling that a Ten Commandments monument may remain on city property in Pleasant Grove, Utah.
The appeals court yesterday sent the case, Society of Separationists v. Pleasant Grove City, back to U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City for reconsideration based on recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings on Ten Commandments monuments.
A year ago, U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins dismissed the Society of Separationists’ lawsuit, saying the court couldn’t second-guess a 1973 ruling by the 10th Circuit in a similar Utah case.
In that case, Anderson v. Salt Lake City Corp., a panel of judges held that a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments was primarily secular, not religious, and didn’t tend to establish religious belief.
Pleasant Grove’s memorial sits in a secluded area that honors the city’s heritage. The monument has been on city property since the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated it in 1971.
Attorney Brian Barnard, representing the Separationists, argued that a Ten Commandments display should not be on public property because it was a clear violation of the separation of church and state and it excluded by implication other religious ideals. He and the American Civil Liberties Union have been successful in having other Ten Commandments monuments around the state removed from public property.
When the Separationists filed the lawsuit, City Attorney Christine Peterson argued that the monument was established for a secular purpose and did not promote any one religion.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling 5-4 in McCreary County v. ACLU, struck down framed copies of the Ten Commandments in two Kentucky courthouses but upheld a granite monument outside the Texas Capitol in its 5-4 ruling in Van Orden v. Perry.
The Court ruled that exhibits would be upheld if their main purpose was to honor the nation’s legal, rather than religious, traditions, and if they did not promote one religious sect over another.
The 10th Circuit said the lower court needed to examine facts in the Pleasant Grove case in accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court rulings.