NORMAN, Okla. — A Baptist minister suing for removal of a Ten Commandments monument at the Oklahoma state capitol won’t get his day in court, a district judge said Sept. 19.
Bruce Prescott, executive director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists and a member of NorthHaven Church, Norman, Okla., joined three others in a lawsuit in 2013 claiming a privately funded 6-foot-tall granite monument authorized by the Legislature in 2009 and placed on the capitol grounds in 2012 violated the state constitution’s ban against using public property to support “any sect, church, denomination or system of religion.”
However, District Court Judge Thomas Prince of Tulsa County, Okla., disagreed, finding the monument serves a “secular” purpose recognizing the Ten Commandments’ place in American history and thereby is not an unconstitutional establishment of religion.
Two of the plaintiffs claimed posting religious teachings on public property constituted endorsement of a religion other than their own. The other two — Prescott and Jim Huff, a member of First Baptist Church, Oklahoma City — said the Ten Commandments are part of their faith tradition, and they object to their beliefs being exploited for political reasons.
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