These Bible-toting, religious freaks are relentless. They continue to push their religion on others with little regard for the separation of Church and State that our Constitution endorses. Even judges are now getting into the act. These people must be guilt-ridden and now want to be in God’s good graces in the hopes of being “saved;” fools that they are. TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press
CINCINNATI – An Ohio judge violated the U.S. Constitution by displaying a poster containing the Ten Commandments in his courtroom, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal district court’s ruling that Richland County Common Pleas Judge James DeWeese violated the constitutional separation between church and state by displaying the poster.
DeWeese’s attorney, Francis Manion, said he and his client disagree with the ruling and are considering their options. They could ask the full appeals court for a hearing or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The judge hung the poster in his courtroom in Mansfield, north of Columbus, in 2006 after the U.S. Supreme Court let stand lower-court rulings that another Ten Commandment poster he hung in 2000 violated separation between church and state. The latest poster titled “Philosophies of Law in Conflict” shows the Ten Commandments in a column listed as “moral absolutes” and secular humanist principles in another column listed as “moral relatives.”
DeWeese attached a commentary to the poster that said he sees a conflict of legal philosophies in the United States — between moral absolutism and moral relativism — and that he believes legal philosophy must be based on fixed moral standards. At the bottom of the poster frame, readers are invited to obtain a pamphlet further explaining DeWeese’s philosophy.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio Foundation filed suit against DeWeese, and the district court agreed with the ACLU that the display endorsed religious views and was unconstitutional.
The ACLU also sued in the case of the first poster.
Attorneys for DeWeese argued before the appeals court that the latest display was different from the first one, when DeWeese hung a poster of the Bill of Rights next to a poster of the Ten Commandments.
But the appeals judges said that “replacing the word religion with the word philosophy does not mask the religious nature” of DeWeese’s purpose. The poster is not merely a courtroom display of the Ten Commandments, but it “sets forth overt religious messages and religious endorsements,” the judges said.
The judges rejected DeWeese’s contention that the display was private religious expression protected by the Constitution, noting that the poster was in a public space and was placed on the wall by a sitting judge.
ACLU attorney Michael Honohan was pleased with the decision.
“If he wants to don the robes of a minister instead of that of a judge and make these same comments, he certainly would be within his First Amendment rights, and we would be happy to protect them,” Honohan said.
