WINDER - Ten Commandments display in the Barrow County courthouse may be taken down because officials don't have the money to fight a court challenge.
The county commission has scheduled a called meeting Monday to talk about whether the county can afford to continue its fight against the American Civil Liberties Union, which has sued over the marker they say amounts to government endorsement of religion.
Commission Chairman Doug Garrison said the county owes $81,000 to its attorney, Herb Titus of Virginia Beach, Va. Garrison estimated that Barrow County has spent between $135,000 and $140,000 _ all donated to the county _ since the lawsuit which was filed in September 2003. The case could go to trial in November.
Barrow authorities have said before they may have to drop their case because of money. All the money spent on the case so far has come not from taxes but from Ten Commandments-Georgia Inc., a local fund-raising group organized by Jody Hice, pastor of Bethlehem First Baptist Church, soon after the lawsuit was filed.
The fund-raising group shuttled money to the county to pay Titus's fees. Last month, Ten Commandments-Georgia held a $50-per-plate fund-raising dinner featuring former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore as keynote speaker.
Moore was suspended from the bench for refusing to remove a 5,300-pound granite Ten Commandments monument he installed in the Alabama Judicial Building.
The dinner raised about $20,000, and about $10,000 of it was forwarded to the county to pay for the lawsuit, Hice told the Athens Banner-Herald. That was the last donation the organization has made to the county.
Hice has estimated the lawsuit could cost the county as much as $300,000.
Garrison has said he opposes dipping in county coffers to pay for the suit.
Wednesday
February 19th, 2025
9:13PM
