אסף גרניט מבשל ארוחת פורים

The American Jewish Committee applauded today's United States Supreme Court decision barring the public display of the Ten Commandments in courthouses. However, AJC was disappointed that the Court, in a separate case, did not bar such displays on public grounds.

In two decisions regarding the constitutionality of displays of the Ten Commandments on government property, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in support of maintaining a longstanding protection against government endorsement of religion.

In McCreary County v. ACLU of KY, the Court rejected the so-called historically contextualized Ten Commandments displays in two county courthouses and a school district as motivated by a primarily religious purpose, concluding that they were a subterfuge for government endorsement of religion. In Van Orden v. Perry, although upholding a large monument of the Ten Commandments on the Texas Statehouse grounds, the majority of the Justices remained steadfastly committed to the notion that government cannot endorse a display found to convey a religious message. Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, issued the following statement responding to the decisions:

We applaud the Court's rejection of the Ten Commandments displays in McCreary County v. ACLU of KY. As Justice Souter argued for the 5-4 Court majority today, "When the government acts with the ostensible and predominant purpose of advancing religion, it violates that central Establishment clause value of official religious neutrality. ... "

We agree.

The Supreme Court's decision today provides an essential affirmation of government neutrality toward religion at a time when, as Justice Souter acknowledged, the religious community appears to be increasingly divided in American public life. In McCreary, Justice Souter articulated an eloquent and powerfully reasoned defense of the separation of church and state in America. Tellingly, he observed "The Framers and the citizens of their time intended not only to protect the integrity of individual conscience in religious matters but to guard against the civic divisiveness that follows when the Government weighs in on one side of religious debate."

The McCreary opinion, however, remains very narrowly crafted and failed to draw a bright line test for displays of religious symbols on government property. We look forward, with some trepidation, to continuing litigation in the realm of public displays of religion. Now more than ever, the closely divided Court in this case underscores the paramount importance of any vacancies arising at the completion of this Court's term today.

While we certainly disagree with the Court's rationale upholding the Ten Commandments display in Van Orden as merely "secular," the Court's adherence to the notion that government should not endorse or oppose religion is an important reaffirmation of government neutrality towards religion as the touchstone of Supreme Court jurisprudence regarding the separation of church and state.

As Jews, the Ten Commandments are the fundamental ethical code on which we base our religious and moral beliefs. We believe that it is precisely because of the Commandments' signal religious value that they belong in our synagogues, religious schools, in our homes and in our hearts, rather than in courts, public schools, or other government institutions. Displaying an inherently religious symbol, such as the Ten Commandments, on public property is not only a clear and direct violation of the Establishment Clause, but also risks detracting from its powerful religious message.

As Justice O'Connor noted in her concurring opinion, the significance of the Ten Commandments may be profoundly religious for Jews and for millions of other Americans, but "We do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment." We commend the Court's recognition of this important constitutional protection.

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is the Washington office of the Union for Reform Judaism, whose more than 900 congregations across North America encompass 1.5 million Reform Jews, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, whose membership includes more than 1,800 Reform rabbis.

Today's Supreme Court's confusing rulings, invalidating an official display of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky when it was surrounded by secular historical monuments in a Courthouse, but upholding an analogous display in the Texas capitol, offers the American people both a silver lining and a cloud. Although there is much reason to applaud the Court's reaffirmation of the constitutional requirement that all government actions touching upon religion have a substantial secular purpose, its failure to find such a sectarian purpose in the obvious and unavoidably religious nature of official display in Texas is troubling.

Paul S. Miller, AJCongress President, said, "The Court's split decision and the multiplicity of opinions in the Texas case appears to indicate that no firm constitutional rule has emerged to govern religious symbols cases. The unfortunate result will most likely be a proliferation of litigation over such displays until some constitutional center is reached."

Miller continued, "The Court's ringing reaffirmation of purpose analysis, and with it the continuing vitality of the landmark Establishment Clause decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman, is the potential silver lining. Unfortunately, without the bright line that we had sought from the Supreme Court, the purpose inquiry could be subverted by public officials disguising their motivations. "

"Moreover," Marc Stern, AJCongress General Counsel, said, "it is worthy of reflection that four Justices were prepared to reject wholesale the Court's sixty-year old commitment to a constitutional requirement that government express no official preference for religion over non-religion. The spectacularly successful American experiment in secular government survived today, but we are deeply troubled that today's decisions virtually invite further attacks on that experiment"

AJCongress had originally filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of Thomas Van Orden, contending that the Ten Commandments monument on Texas government property has the unconstitutional effect of endorsing religion, and more specifically, the values of Protestant Christianity. It also joined in a brief prepared by Professor Douglas Laycock for the Baptist Joint Committee, the American Jewish Committee, and others in arguing that the Kentucky display was also unconstitutional. Dissenting in the Texas case, Justice John Paul Stevens cited the American Jewish Congress brief.

The American Jewish Congress is a membership association of Jewish Americans, organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad, through public policy advocacy, in the courts, Congress, the executive branch and state and local governments. It also works overseas with others who are similarly engaged.