NEW PHILADELPHIA, Ohio — A Texas-based religious liberties organization has asked a school district in Ohio to restore a Ten Commandments plaque to a middle school wall after learning that the Decalogue display was removed following a complaint from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). “[I]n light of a recent decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, your removal of this historic plaque because it contains religious symbolism may unwittingly be of the type of hostility toward religion that the U.S. Constitution forbids,” the letter from the First Liberty Institute to New Philadelphia City Schools states, as shared with Christian News Network. The correspondence refers to the case of American Legion v. American Humanist Association, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month in a 7-2 decision that the 40-foot Bladensburg cross veterans memorial in Maryland is not unconstitutional and should not be torn down, lest its removal be perceived as “not as a neutral act but as the manifestation of ‘a hostility toward religion that has no place in our Establishment Clause traditions.’” The American Humanist Association (AHA) had sued the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in 2014 over the presence of the […]
