A Ten Commandments monument in front of the Arkansas State Capitol and the 2015 law that approved it were ruled unconstitutional by a federal court March 31.
Chief U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker in Little Rock ordered Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester not to enforce the Ten Commandments Monument Display Act and further directed him to remove the 6,000-pound granite display from the Capitol grounds. However, she stayed that portion of the order pending appeal.
Kristine Baker
“Based on the undisputed record of evidence taken as a whole … the Display Act and the Ten Commandment Monument on State Capitol grounds violate the Establishment Clause,” Baker ruled March 31. “By placing the Ten Commandments Monument as required by the Display Act, Secretary Jester failed to avoid excessive government entanglement with religion.”
The act was championed by then-state Sen. Jason Rapert to privately finance and erect a Ten Commandments display at the Capitol. The first monument installed in 2017 was destroyed by a vandal, then replaced with another in 2018.
Baker’s ruling came in Donna Cave v. Cole Jester, a 2018 lawsuit challenging the law and monument as violations of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
Plaintiffs included the American Humanist Association, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers, a rabbi, an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church, a Wiccan and other individuals. Intervenor plaintiffs included the Satanic Temple, which sought unsuccessfully to erect a statue at the Capitol.
The lawsuit argued the legislation and the monument represent government endorsements of religion.
Annie Laurie Gaylor
“The state of Arkansas has no business telling citizens which gods to worship — or whether to worship at all,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said. “The First Commandment is a direct violation of the First Amendment.”
Foundation Senior Counsel Sam Grover said the decision reaffirms government’s responsibility to remain impartial on matters of religion: “That neutrality is essential to protecting the rights of all citizens, regardless of their beliefs.”
Evidence that helped sway Baker’s decision included comments from numerous Arkansas lawmakers supportive of the act.
One legislator said the Ten Commandments communicate “that God has ordained civil government and has delegated limited authority to civil government,” while another described the Decalogue as proof “God has limited the authority of civil government, and that God has endowed people with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Such comments together with other evidence convey “a message that the Christian religion is favored, and the Display Act is coercive in violation of the Establishment Clause,” the order concluded.
A spokesman for Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said his office is studying the opinion and whether or not to appeal, the Arkansas Advocate reported.
Jason Rapert
The publication also found a social media post by Rapert, a former Republican state senator, vowing to fight the decision: “We are going to fight to ensure that this monument as well as monuments like it are going to be upheld and standing across the country.”
Amitai Heller, legal director of the American Humanist Association, described the ruling as a win for religious liberty.
“State capitols should be welcoming to all citizens, and this ruling rightfully rejects this effort to promote one specific set of religious beliefs above all others — including the right to not believe at all. This decision affirms the First Amendment’s bedrock constitutional principle of church-state separation, which ensures these very freedoms.”
Baker’s decision comes amid a flurry of Ten Commandments-related legislation in several states seeking to place displays in public school classrooms.
Texas’ Ten Commandments law is currently before the same federal appeals court that allowed Louisiana to install displays in classrooms as federal litigation continues. But in March, Arkansas’ law mandating the displays in state schools was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court in Fayetteville.
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