In Georgia, Ten Commandments popping up in more courthouses

<p>A year after a granite Ten Commandments marker was hauled out of Alabama's high court, fights over the religious document in courthouses are still going strong in Georgia.</p><p>Two Georgia counties have installed Ten Commandments displays in their courthouses in the past week, ignoring lawsuits in other counties. Says Henry County commissioner Gerry Adams: "I don't see anything wrong with saying you ought not be killin' or stealin'."</p><p>On Tuesday, Henry County commissioners voted 5-0 to put a framed Ten Commandments poster in the entrance of a new courthouse. A similar display was installed in a courthouse last week in Cherokee County, in Atlanta's northern suburbs.</p><p>That brings to at least five the number of Georgia counties that have placed Ten Commandments markers in their courthouses in recent years. One of those counties, Habersham, obeyed a federal judge's order and took down its two displays last November. The rest are still up, although some currently face legal challenges.</p><p>Dozens more county governments in Georgia are considering Ten Commandments displays, said Ray McBerry, state chairman for the League of the South, a heritage group that paid for Henry County's poster.</p><p>McBerry called the Ten Commandment trend a direct reaction to last summer's battle by former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore to show the holy rules in courthouses. The marker was removed last August, and Moore was removed from the court for refusing to obey a federal ruling calling for its removal.</p><p>"Those of us who are native Southerners have had all we're going to take of the cultural wars that are being waged on our traditional values," he said.</p><p>In Henry, the most recent county to wade into the Ten Commandments debate, Adams said he didn't have to think too hard before voting to allow the display.</p><p>"I'm not intimidated by a lawsuit," he said. "It's logical to me that if our legal and criminal system is loosely based on the Ten Commandments, why is it wrong to show it? It's not a defiant act."</p><p>Legal watchers call the Ten Commandments trend a natural exploration of a shady area in constitutional law.</p><p>John Witte, a law professor at Emory University and expert on the separation of church and state, said it's unclear whether the recent county displays would withstand court challenges.</p><p>The U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on a public religious display since 1989, Witte said, and the question of whether a Ten Commandments poster implies government endorsement of religion is complicated.</p><p>Governments can insulate themselves from lawsuits by surrounding the Ten Commandments with secular documents like the Declaration of Independence, and the question can also depend on where in a courthouse the Ten Commandments are shown.</p><p>County officials that vote to show the Ten Commandments "are trying to test the edges of what's appropriate," Witte said.</p><p>"Some see this as a right-wing conspiracy to inject religion into public life, and it may be that, but it's also the acceptance of an invitation by the Supreme Court that we want to leave these things to lower courts," he said.</p><p>A few lawmakers in the Georgia House tried to clarify the matter last winter, but a bill never made it to a vote.</p><p>The bill would've forced the state to pick up legal tabs from courthouse Ten Commandments challenges as long as the local governments agreed to display the document along with other secular writings. It was thought the bill's passage would embolden more counties to show the Ten Commandments.</p><p>Adams said he wasn't worried about the lack of a state rule or clear court ruling defining when a Ten Commandments display is legal.</p><p>"It's kind of a no-brainer thing to me," Adams said. "I don't see what it could possible harm."</p>