Victory Dance For Moses

Of course I have to post when we have a victory over the ACLU. Several emails from supporters so hat tips all around.



I got this email directly from ADF:

ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND NEWS RELEASE
August 19, 2005 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT ADF MEDIA RELATIONS: (480) 444-0020

Federal appeals court rejects attack
on Nebraska Ten Commandments monument

U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit says monument constitutional,
cites U.S. Supreme Court decision in Van Orden v. Perry

ST. LOUIS - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit today ruled against the ACLU in their attack upon a monument bearing the Ten Commandments in Plattsmouth, Neb. The court reversed the decision of a district court judge who ruled the monument unconstitutional, vacating the position of a three-judge panel of the court that earlier upheld the district court's decision.

"One offended passerby does not amount to a violation of the Establishment Clause," said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. "The court rightfully rejected the argument that this monument promotes religion. It has been present for many decades in the corner of a city park without any complaints. It is perfectly constitutional, as has been argued in this case from the beginning."

ADF-allied attorney Jeff Downing, of the Lincoln, Neb., law firm Keating, O'Gara, Davis & Nedved, helped defend the case, ACLU of Nebraska v. City of Plattsmouth, with lead attorney Frank Manion of the American Center for Law and Justice.

The Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the granite monument, inscribed with the Ten Commandments, to the city in 1965. The monument stands in the corner of a 45-acre memorial park ten blocks from city hall. In 2001, the ACLU sued the city on behalf of an unidentified man who claimed the monument violated the so-called "separation of church and state," even though the city did not routinely maintain the monument.

A federal district court judge granted summary judgment in favor of the ACLU, but the 8th Circuit panel reversed that decision, relying upon the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Van Orden v. Perry, which concerned a similar monument in Texas.

Today's opinion states, "The Ten Commandments monument had stood on the Texas State Capitol grounds for forty years without legal challenge. In Justice Breyer's view, 'those 40 years suggest more strongly than can any set of formulaic tests that few individuals...are likely to have understood the monument as amounting, in any significantly detrimental way, to a government effort' to promote, endorse, or favor religion."

"Like the Ten Commandments monument at issue in Van Orden," the court added, "the Plattsmouth monument makes passive-and permissible-use of the text of the Ten Commandments to acknowledge the role of religion in our Nation's heritage."

The full text of the court's opinion can be read HERE ADF provided funding for the case and for a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the appeals court by the National Legal Foundation.

ADF is America's largest legal alliance defending religious liberty through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.

www.telladf.org

I just gotta say I love it when freedom wins over the ACLU!

Cross Posted At Stop The ACLU

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