Pro-Family Leader Applauds Court's Sanity in Kentucky Ten Commandments Ruling

Allie Martin

(AgapePress) - The director of the American Family Association of Michigan is questioning why the national media has largely ignored a recent, groundbreaking ruling on a constitutional controversy with a long history of hotly debated precedents.

Late last month the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed a lower court's ruling that a Ten Commandments display in Mercer County, Kentucky, was constitutional. However, as part of the ruling, the court declared that the First Amendment does not demand a wall separating church and state.

AFA of Michigan director Gary Glenn regards the court's declaration as a stunning reversal of 50 years of judicial decisions. "We ought to be trumpeting that decision from every mountaintop," he says, "from every Christian radio station. It is as big a deal as we make it to be."



Glenn says it is "notable" that the mainstream media have been giving lots of ink and airtime to discussion of the recent ruling in the Dover (Pennsylvania) Area School District case, which he describes as "a decision by one federal judge throwing out intelligent design." Meanwhile, the pro-family leader points out, there has been "almost no mainstream media coverage" of the Sixth Circuit's Ten Commandments ruling.

That unanimous court of appeals decision has the potential to affect intelligent design, Ten Commandments displays, Nativity scene displays, and perhaps even prayer in schools, Glenn insists. In fact, he says the ruling could influence virtually all cases involving the supposed "separation of church and state" so often touted by liberal and atheist activists.

The head of AFA-Michigan considers the appellate court's declaration to be a sort of vindication. "We've said for a long time, those of us in the pro-family movement, that there is no appearance of a so-called separation of church and state in the United States Constitution, but now it is a unanimous Court of Appeals in the Sixth Circuit that has flatly said there is no wall of separation between church and state found in the U.S. Constitution," he notes.

In fact, in its decision the Sixth Circuit described the ACLU's continual reference to such a separation as "not only tiresome but extra-Constitutional -- outside the Constitution," Glenn adds. He says the appellate court's clear ruling in favor of constitutional sanity will have far reaching implications, and he encourages patriotic people across the U.S. to observe a day of prayer and thanksgiving for the decision.

• Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
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