LOUISVILLE -- Supporters of posting the Ten Commandments in Kentucky courthouses say history is on their side. A civil-liberties group that wants the religious text taken down makes the same claim.
The dispute has been waged from courthouses and schools in rural Kentucky to federal courtrooms.
In one corner of the legal fight is the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, which puts its faith in a fundamental principle from the nation's Founding Fathers -- that church and state should be separate.
On the opposite side are county officials, backed by a conservative legal group, who claim that posting the commandments signifies the doctrine's historic role in establishing a system of laws and government.
The guiding word in the dispute stems from an earlier Kentucky case. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that posting the commandments in schools amounted to an unconstitutional government promotion of religion.
Against that legal backdrop, the ACLU prevailed in the initial judgments in the latest dispute, but more rulings will come.
So far, the ACLU has sued seven Kentucky counties in two rounds of federal lawsuits. The counties posted the commandments either in courthouses, schools or, in one case, a county-owned hospital.
The ACLU followed with lawsuits in November against four more rural Kentucky counties -- Garrard, Grayson, Mercer and Rowan -- seeking to have commandments displays removed from the courthouses. All four counties still have the commandments posted and intend to fight the suits.
At least 20 other Kentucky counties display the commandments in public buildings, and each could be the next target for litigation unless the texts come down, said Jeff Vessels, executive director of the ACLU of Kentucky. In some places, the commandments hang in courtrooms, he said.
In a preliminary ruling, a U.S. District Court judge ordered Ten Commandments displays taken down in the Pulaski and McCreary county courthouses and in Harlan County schools. The counties complied but are still seeking court consent to repost the displays.
Another judge struck down state legislation to erect a monument to the Ten Commandments on the state Capitol lawn in Frankfort. That judge said the display amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The ruling has been appealed to a federal appeals court.
Some critics have branded the ACLU as un-American or un-Christian in calls and letters to its Louisville office. The name-calling won't deter the organization, which finds solace in the Bill of Rights, Vessels said.
"It is the ultimate patriotic act to defend what makes this country unique, and that is freedom and equality that are guaranteed in the Bill of Rights," Vessels said.
Individuals can exercise their free speech and religion rights by displaying the commandments any way they wish, with the ACLU's blessing, Vessels said. People can put up yard signs promoting the commandments. They can wear shirts listing the tenets -- cherished by believers as God's Word -- or they can carry copies of the commandments wherever they go.
"When government endorses religion, it is violating the religious freedom guaranteed to all of us," Vessels said. "That is what happens when governments post or allow to be posted copies of the Ten Commandments in public buildings."
A rival civil-liberties group says the ACLU's argument overlooks a historic role the commandments played in this country's development.
"I think what the ACLU is trying to do is to rip away from public life every shred of religion that has impacted our country," said Erik Stanley, an attorney for Liberty Counsel.
Liberty Counsel, based in Orlando, Fla., is representing some of the Kentucky counties sued for posting the commandments.
"For us, it's not a religious crusade," Stanley said. "It is more of an effort to preserve what the foundations of our country are."
The Kentucky displays, for the most part, are surrounded by such historic documents as the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and an Abraham Lincoln quote about God. Such displays should pass constitutional muster, Stanley said.
"These counties are not presenting the Ten Commandments as a religious mandate or exercise," Stanley said. "They are presenting them in a historical way to show what impact the Ten Commandments played in the foundation of our system of law and government, and that's perfectly permissible for them to do so."
Courts have declared that postings of the commandments in public buildings are permissible as part of educational or comparative religion displays, Vessels said. However, the displays in the Kentucky counties sued don't meet that standard.
After Rowan County was sued, people rallied around the commandments display. The display was put up more than two years ago in the chambers of the Fiscal Court, a little-used room on the second floor of the courthouse.
When county magistrates met to decide whether to keep the religious text up, the turnout was so big that a larger meeting room was needed. Even then, the crowd spilled out into the hallway.
"It has galvanized the community," Rowan County Judge-Executive Clyde A. Thomas said. "It was the largest crowd that we've ever had for anything since I've been in office."
The sentiment was almost unanimous in support of keeping the commandments posted, so the county decided to fight the suit, he said. But the Fiscal Court added some historical documents to the display.
"There are some causes that I think are worth fighting for, and I believe this is one of them," Thomas said.
The ACLU has its own defenders. After filing its second round of suits, some callers to the ACLU spoke of the dangers of government endorsing religion and pointed to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan as an example, Vessels said.
"They pointed out the irony of having governments in Kentucky wanting to impose religious views on citizens at the same time the nation is fighting on the other side of the world against those who would impose their religious views on others," Vessels said. "That irony is not lost on many people."