Barrow County fights lawsuit

<p>Lawyers for Barrow County asked a federal judge on Thursday to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its Ten Commandments display in the county courthouse.</p><p>The motion was argued before U.S. District Judge William OKelley in Gainesville.</p><p>Herb Titus, lead counsel for the Barrow County Board of Commissioners, said that the ACLU failed to seek permission from a trial judge before filing the lawsuit on behalf of an anonymous plaintiff.</p><p>ACLU attorney Frank L. Derrickson said he would be willing to disclose the name of the plaintiff to the judge and defendants counsel, if the information were not released to the public.</p><p>OKelley did not rule on the motion Thursday.</p><p>Its hard for me to accept ... that there are not people who can step forward and address these issues, in regard to the unnamed plaintiff.</p><p>When Derrickson said people feared repercussions for opposing the Ten Commandments display, the judge sympathized, saying he had received threatening telephone calls about the case.</p><p>The ACLU lawsuit was filed on Sept. 16 on behalf of a Barrow resident who did not want to be identified. The suit argues that the Ten Commandments display violates the concept of church-state separation, and is, therefore, unconstitutional.</p><p>Barrow is among a number of Georgia counties including Jackson, Habersham and Cherokee that have Ten Commandments displays in public buildings.</p><p>The only other county that has faced a lawsuit so far is Habersham. Last month OKelley ordered Habersham officials to remove its displays of the Ten Commandments at its courthouse and a swimming pool complex.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2003/12/181673