McCreary County v. ACLU
| McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky | ||||
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| Negotiated March 2, 2005 |
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| Decided June 27, 2005 |
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| Certiorari to clarify the question of whether the display of the Ten Commandments in court buildings violates the religious neutrality requirement ( Establishment Clause ) laid down in the 1st additional article . | ||||
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| The display of the Ten Commandments in courthouses violates the 1st Amendment , since a neutral observer gets the impression that the state is promoting a certain religion. | ||||
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| Applied Law | ||||
| 1. Amendment to the United States Constitution |
McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky is a US Supreme Court case on the religious neutrality of government agencies in the United States, specifically the question of whether the display of a plaque with the Ten Commandments in courthouses violates the state's religious neutrality.
background
By order of the regional authorities were in three courtrooms in McCreary County in Kentucky US state partly decorated and fitted with gold frame copies of the Ten Commandments hung. A complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against this was rejected by the authorities on the grounds that the Ten Commandments had shaped the laws of the state of Kentucky. Likewise, the legislation of the regional parliament repeatedly contains links to the Christian faith. The authorities oppose the removal of the Ten Commandments and merely agreed to attach explanatory texts and a copy of the Bill of Rights in the same size in addition to the corresponding picture frames . The American Civil Liberties Union then sued for violation of the United States' constitutional rule of religious neutrality ( Establishment Clause ).
judgment
The court ruled in a 5-4 decision (that is, five judges voted for the decision and four against) that the display of the Ten Commandments in courthouses is prohibited. As soon as the impression is given that the state is promoting a certain religion, the principle of neutrality has already been violated. In Stone v. Graham said the court had already ruled that the Ten Commandments were evidently beliefs related to a particular religion. The commandments are not (only) an expression of a particular era or form of general legislation, as the authorities in McCreary County have argued. In particular, the first commandment (“I am the Lord, your God, and you shall have no other gods besides me”) inevitably leads to an understanding of the Ten Commandments in a religious context. While not every display of the Ten Commandments is necessarily unconstitutional, McCreary County authorities have failed to adequately relate the Ten Commandments to other sources of secular law . The measures taken were by no means sufficient for this. A largely isolated display of the Ten Commandments in this regard could consequently be interpreted as the promotion of a certain religion on the part of the state and is therefore not compatible with the 1st amendment to the constitution.
Minor opinion
In his inferior opinion shared by three other judges, judge Antonin Scalia criticized the judgment of the court. In contrast to the French legal understanding, for example, the secular character of the United States' constitution does not require a complete separation of state and religion. The view that any religious reference must be avoided by government agencies is to be rejected and does not correspond either to the historical legal understanding of the country or to the intention of the founding fathers of the United States . Religious references, also specifically of a Christian nature, exist in various forms in the most varied of state institutions. This is the case, for example, when opening congress sessions with a prayer, when the president takes the oath of office "So help me God" or by printing the phrase "In God we trust" on US banknotes. The constitution also called for state neutrality towards religions, but not necessarily a neutrality between religiosity in general and non-religiousness. The mere presentation of the Ten Commandments does not mean that the Christian religion is preferred or supported by the state. As long as no religion is preferred over another and it is only a matter of public display of religious principles of a particular religion, the principles of the first constitutional principle are preserved.