he U.S. Supreme Court today announced that it will not hear an appeal by the city of Elkhart, Indiana in a case involving a granite Ten Commandments display in the town square.

   The decision by the justices lets stand a lower court ruling that the stone monument, which has stood on the lawn outside Elkhart's City Hall since 1958, violated the constitutional separation of church and state. The town argued that the display did not promote religious belief, and served a secular function as part of a collection of historical and legal themes. Elkhart plaintiffs William Books and Michael Suetkamp, with the help of attorney Ken Falk of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, filed suit in 1998 saying that their constitutional rights were violated by the presence of the religious rules on public property.

   Mr. Suetkamp is Indiana State Director for American Atheists, and was honored with the prestigious "Atheist of the Year" award at the group's recent national convention in Orlando, Florida.

   A federal judge quickly dismissed the lawsuit, accepting the city's argument that the monument was part of a historical display. On December 14, 2000, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling, and ordered that the monument be taken down. Elkhart, with the help of the American Center for Law and Justice, a religious legal group founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, appealed the decision.

   According to Reuters news services, the high court justices divided 6-3 of whether to hear the case. Chief Justice William Rhenquist, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas reportedly voted to consider the appeal. Rhenquist, who has stated that the "wall of separation" between church in state had no precedence in American history or jurisprudence, wrote that the granite display and surrounding depictions "convey that the monument is part of the city's celebration of its cultural and historical roots, not a promotion of religious faith." He added that the monument, "simply reflects the Ten Commandments' role in the development of our legal system.

   Leading the majority dissent, however, was Justice John Paul Stevens who noted that the first two lines of the monument's text were in a significantly larger font than the rest of the marker and state, "THE TEN COMMANDMENTS -- I AM the LORD thy GOD." Stevens said that portion of the monument inscription "is rather hard to square with the proposition that the monument expresses no particular religious preference."

   The remarks by Rhenquist and Stevens were made in separate notes attached to the court statement not to review the lower court decision. "But the show of dissent on a question of hearing a case was unusual," observed Associated Press writer Anne Gearan.

   Despite the move to let the lower court ruling stand, today's announcement clearly shows that the justices remain seriously divided over how to interpret the First Amendment's establishment clause which prohibits endorsement of religion by government. Display of the Ten Commandments on public property has become an especially volatile issue, comparable to the fight over school prayer in the early 1960s. Religious groups have embarked on numerous efforts to have the Commandments shown in public school classrooms, and a national "Hang Ten" campaign by the Washington, DC-based Family Research Council encourages government officials, including members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, to display the Decalogue in their offices.

   Congress entered the fray in 1999, passing a resolution which recommended that the various states encourage the showing of the Commandments.

   Even with today's decision, though, there is still legal conflict over the public display of the Commandments. Some case law has declared that any monument or presentation of the Decalogue can pass constitutional muster if it is "secularized" with assorted historical documents. The extent of the divide over the issue became clear when the state governments of Alabama, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas joined in support of the Elkhart appeal. The amicus ("friend of the court") brief stated: "In short, in this case, the Ten Commandments need not be viewed in exclusively religious terms. Here, they serve a secular purpose as well -- as a monument to America's cultural heritage."

   The high court announcement to not hear the case could well result in the removal of Ten Commandments displays in Elkhart and other areas in the jurisdiction of the Seventh Circuit; but it gives little clarification for groups on both sides of the issue who had hoped for more definitive legal guidance. Conflicting lower court rulings could once again pressure the justices to eventually consider the issue. In addition, the battle over displaying the commandments is likely to continue, as numerous churches and religious organizations sally forth in efforts to have the Decalogue posted in classrooms or in front of schools and other public venues. There is also the long-term question of judicial appointments, especially with President Bush expected to make every effort to change the political complexion of the high court.

   In the meantime, though the Indiana case is a significant victory for the separation of church and state, the contentious debate over religious expression in the public square continues unabated.

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