Sometimes the devil really is in the details, as the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation is discovering in its recent attempt [1] to force the Giles County Public School system to remove a copy of the Ten Commandments displayed in each of the county’s five schools. WDBJ-7 is reporting that the Giles County resident who filed the initial complaint over the display–and whom the foundation was expecting to serve as a plaintiff in its suit against the school system–is not a parent, therefore lacks standing [2] to sue the county. Not to be deterred from their goal of ridding America’s public life of all vestiges of religion, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is conducting a county-wide search for a plaintiff; so if you’re the parent of a child who attends a school in the Giles County Public School system, dislikes the Ten Commandments and doesn’t mind being the most unpopular person in the county, the Freedom from Religion Foundation is looking for you.
As Bearing Drift‘s own Brian Kirwin noted [3]in the comment section of the original post, the U.S. Supreme Court has threaded the needle on Ten Commandments displays, but the precedent appears to be that as long as the Ten Commandments are situated within a display of significant historical documents, the “original Big Ten” may be displayed in public schools. Giles County’s displays include not only the Ten Commandments, but also the very U.S. Constitution the Freedom from Religion Foundation purports to defend. Either way, the county’s government and the Liberty Counsel are prepared to defend the school board’s decision to defy the Freedom from Religion Foundation’s initial complaint.
H/T: Ward Smythe!