WASHINGTON - Justices have repeatedly refused to revisit issues raised by their 1980 decision that banned the posting of copies of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.
In the meantime, lower courts have reached a hodgepodge of conflicting rulings that allow displays in some instances but not in others.
The high court will hear appeals early next year involving displays in Kentucky and Texas.
In the Texas case, the justices will decide if a Ten Commandments monument on the state Capitol grounds is an unconstitutional attempt to establish state-sponsored religion.
A homeless man, Thomas Van Orden, lost his lawsuit to have the 6-foot tall red granite removed. The Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the monument to the state in 1961. The group gave scores of similar monuments to American towns during the 1950s and '60s, and those have been the subject of multiple court fights.
Separately, the justices will consider whether a lower court wrongly barred the posting of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky courthouses.
This is a tough, tough issue. On one hand this country's population has more Christians in it than any other type of religious denomination. On the other hand our nation was founded on the idea of religious freedom which most people have interpreted as a need for the government to be secular.
For the record, I am an atheist. I have never kept my status as an atheist a secret on this site. Believe me, my status as such has never been easy given my strong-right political tendencies. But I respect the religious rights of others. I often find myself on the side of Christians trying to protect their beliefs from organizations like the ACLU.
Be that as it may, I am against these displays of the ten commandments on federal property. If we are to call our selves a nation of freedoms our government cannot display favoritism to any one religion. I understand that our country was founded by Christians, but now over 200 years later our country is made up of people who practice just about every type of religion under the sun. I think is disrespectful to non-Christians to have Christian imagery displayed in government buildings and on government grounds.
Nobody is stopping Christians, or anyone else, from believing what they want to believe. Its just that such beliefs should be taken off government grounds. If you want to put up a monument to the ten commandments then do it on some private property so that citizens who don't want to look at such things can avoid it if they want to.