According to Oklahoma Governor, the Ten Commandments monument located on state government grounds will not be removed, and she claims the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling on the Ten Commandments statue is “wrong.”
In a related report by the Inquisitr , when atheists rewrote the Ten Commandments , many people were upset.
In late June, Oklahoma’s Supreme Court ordered the Ten Commandments monument to be removed because it supposedly benefits the Jewish and Christian faiths in violation of the state’s constitution. The 7 to 2 ruling claimed the Ten Commandments are “obviously religious in nature,” which overturned the ruling of a district court judge who decided the Ten Commandments statue could remain.
Attorney General Scott Pruitt had argued that the Ten Commandments monument was historical in nature, and not specifically religious. Pruit also noted Oklahoma’s Ten Commandments statue is almost identical to Texas’ monument, which was previously found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Due to these reasons, Oklahoma’s Attorney General disagreed with the state Supreme Court’s ruling.
“Quite simply, the Oklahoma Supreme Court got it wrong,” Pruit said. “The court completely ignored the profound historical impact of the Ten Commandments on the foundation of Western law.”
Based upon the recent words of Mary Fallin , Ten Commandments cases may not be over in Oklahoma. She has filed a petition requesting a rehearing of the Ten Commandments case and she is also supporting the move by the Legislative branch to amend the state Constitution to make the Ten Commandments monument legally permissible.
“Oklahoma is a state where we respect the rule of law, and we will not ignore the state courts or their decisions,” Fallin said, according to Talking Points Memo . “However, we are also a state with three co-equal branches of government.”
The reason the state Constitution will need to be amended is because Article 2, Section 5 specifically states, “No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary, or sectarian institution as such.”
Rep. John Paul Jordan agrees with Mary Fallin’s Ten Commandments decision. He claims the way the Supreme Court is interpreting the state Consitution could lead to discrimination against “Native American artwork in the Capitol and State Supreme Court” in addition to monuments with Jewish and Christian history.
“After reviewing the Supreme Court’s 10 Commandments ruling , it is clear that we have a toxic provision in our state Constitution,” he said in a statement, according to KOCO . “It was written with discrimination in mind, and like a malignant tumor, needs to be removed completely.”
Do you think Oklahoma’s Ten Commandments monuments should be removed?
[Image via Wikipedia]
