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in Ten Commandments Row
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
 Washington, D.C.--A House vote intended to bar enforcement of a federal court decision striking down display of the Ten Commandments in an Alabama courthouse was denounced Friday by Americans United for Separation of Church and State.Americans United said the July 23 vote by the U.S. House of Representatives is an act of political grandstanding that would never survive court review. The measure, sponsored by Representative John Hostettler (R-Indiana), was approved by the House 260-161 as an amendment to an appropriations bill. It bars the use of federal funds to enforce the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in ^Glassroth v. Moore,~ in which the court ordered the removal of a two-ton Ten Commandments monument from the Judicial Building in Montgomery. "Representative Hostettler needs to go back to school and re-take fifth-grade civics," said the Reverend Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "Congress cannot nullify court rulings it does not like merely by passing legislation." Continued Lynn: "This is pure political grandstanding. Worse than that, it's an insult to the Constitution. Our country operates under the rule of law. Hostettler is promoting a form of anarchy." Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who placed the Commandments display in the state court building, has argued that the federal courts have no right to interfere with his decisions as the state's top judicial officer. Moore has refused to say whether he will defy a federal court order to remove the monument. Lynn noted that during the struggle for civil rights, some racist lawmakers tried similar gambits to defy federal court decisions mandating integration. Those efforts failed then and will fail again, he said. "George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door, but the federal courts had the final say. Reason and right triumphed over bigotry and extremism," said Lynn. "They will do so again." Lynn continued, "It's sad to see efforts to defy the federal courts resurrected again, and even sadder that a majority of the House has endorsed such a dangerous, hare-brained scheme." Americans United, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alabama ACLU sponsored the Glassroth case against Chief Justice Moore. The groups will proceed with their legal efforts, Lynn said, and ask that the Ten Commandments monument be removed as soon as possible. Hostettler also sponsored an amendment barring the use of federal funds to enforce a ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools because of its "under God" language. That passed 307-119. Both Hostettler amendments were added to an appropriations bill for the Commerce, Justice, State and Judiciary departments. |