December 2017 Church & State - December 2016

Supreme Court Rejects N.M. Ten Commandments Case

  AU admin

A Ten Commandments marker that was erected six years ago on government property in Bloomfield, N.M., has been moved to a church after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower court’s ruling that the display should be removed from public property.

Kevin Mauzy, founder of the group that erected the commandments in 2011, said he was “kind of sad” about the high court’s decision not to hear the Bloomfield v. Felix case. He noted that the Decalogue’s new home, the First Baptist Church of Bloomfield, is a good spot for it.

“It’s something that the whole community can enjoy and appreciate,” Mauzy told the Associated Press.

In court, Bloomfield officials insisted that the religious tablets did not reflect the government’s views. The Ameri­can Civil Liberties Union challenged the display’s presence on public property a year after it was erected, arguing that it violated church-state separation and was a public endorsement of religion.

Mauzy added that no public money was used to relocate the commandments.

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