“This action flies in the face of both strong legal precedents and our fundamental notions of what religious equality means in the United States,” the ACLU said in a national statement. ”When the government promotes one faith, whether it is through the Ten Commandments or other religious documents, it automatically diminishes all other faiths.”
But Mathew Staver, who serves as dean of Liberty University School of Law and the chairman of the Liberty Counsel, counters this argument by claiming that the Ten Commandments has every right to be displayed. Staver says that it is perfectly protected as a portion of a grander historical setting alongside the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
On Monday, federal Judge Michael Urbanski ordered all parties to discuss the future of the Ten Commandments in mediation. If, indeed, a solution cannot be reached, then the case will return to court. The Bluefield Daily Telegraph had more:
A federal court judge ordered mediation Monday for the parties involved in a lawsuit about whether the Ten Commandments can be displayed at a Giles County high school.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael F. Urbanski with the U.S. District Court in Roanoke ordered the Giles County School Board and the unnamed student and parent into mediation to see if a compromise can be reached over the display of the biblical texts.
The Liberty Counsel, which is representing the Giles County School Board, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, which is representing the unidentified student and parents, will meet with a magistrate judge during the mediation period. If no decision is made during mediation, the case will return to court.
But Urbanski also made a curious recommendation to help alleviate tensions and to find a potential middle ground. Rather than keeping all 10 commandments, he suggested removing the first four and simply leaving the remaining six. Why, you ask? Well, the first few codes are religious in nature, whereas the final six are far more secular.
