WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Monday Indiana's appeal that it should be allowed to erect a limestone monument with the Ten commandments on the statehouse lawn in Indianapolis.
Without any comment or dissent, the justices let stand a federal appeals court ruling that placing the monument on government property would violate church-state separation under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.
Indiana argued in its appeal that the First Amendment permitted the government's display to ``memorialize the role the Commandments have played in the development of the rule of law and of the American legal system.''
The Indiana Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs sued, arguing that the monument injected specific religious beliefs to the public square.
The planned monument consists of two pieces of limestone, a four-sided block resting upon a rectangular base, and will weigh 11,500 pounds (5,200 kg).
The two wider sides of the four-sided block are carved into rounded arcs at the top, resembling tablets, a form typically used in artistic depictions of the stone tablets delivered by Moses upon returning from Mt. Sinai.
The Ten Commandments would be engraved in one-inch capital letters on one of the wide surfaces of the 7-foot tall monument.
Indiana defended the monument, saying the other wide surface would display the Bill of Rights and that the preamble to the 1851 Indiana Constitution will be inscribed on one of the smaller sides.
Indiana also said the monument would replace a Ten Commandments plaque on the statehouse grounds that was smashed by vandals in 1991.
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction banning the placement of the monument because the opponents were likely to win at trial. A U.S. appeals court based in Chicago upheld the decision, pending a resolution of the case on the merits.
MONUMENT ENDORSES RELIGION, COURT RULES
The appeals court held the Ten Commandments contained an inherently religious text, and that the monument amounted to an endorsement of religion by the state.
Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter said the appeals court decision was wrong. He said in the appeal that the case presented an ``important and recurring issue'' on whether the government may display the Ten Commandments.
``The state's monument -- with its seminal secular charters of state and federal government, set among numerous markers honoring the history of the state of Indiana and the nation -- merely commemorates the profound historical influence of the Commandments,'' he said.
Alabama, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia supported the appeal.
Lawyers for the Indiana Civil Liberties Union opposed the appeal, saying the posting of the text of the Commandments was not a memorial to a common secular heritage.
``Posting a document holy to Christians and Jews is directly contrary to what this court has noted is our real heritage,'' they said.
The Supreme Court considered a similar case last year. In May, the justices allowed the removal of a granite monument of the Ten Commandments from the front of city hall in Elkhart, Indiana.