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If it had been part of the DeMille advertising campaign, the Court may have upheld it on the ground no one objected to it for over 50 years, but given this was first place in 2004 no such history exists.
The Supreme Court has basically ruled that if no one had objected to something like the Ten Commandments for a long period of time, it is hard to see how such a long term monument sanctions one religion over another. Now that position assumes the monument is NOT anti-some other religious belief system (Including Atheism) but the Court has been reluctant to remove old monuments that were viewed as acceptable at the time the monument was made but have since fallen into "disfavor". We are NOT discussing something that clearly offends a group (For example something anti-black for example) but something that on its face is of minor objection today (Such as an old Ten Commandment statute).
This Monument was planted and someone almost immediately objected. That was enough for the trial court and the US Supreme court would have upheld that decision given the recent installation of the Monument. On the other hand the Court have been reluctant to remove older (i.e. 50 Plus years old) such monument when the first objection is made decades after the monument was first installed. I see this split continuing for the next several years until almost all of the Older Commandments had been litigated over and a court ruled in their favor (Some people want the publicity not just the removal of such monuments). On the other hand, more recent installation of such monument will NOT be tolerated on the grounds of Separation of Church and State, especially if someone objects.
The best example of this was the Ten Commandments on the Allegheny Court House outside wall. It was among other such plaques put up over the years (Including the Pledge of Allegiance and a Plague honoring those Pittsburghers that stop the transfer of Arms from Pittsburgh to the South in 1861), None of these plaques had been clean for years (The Plagues had been washed down but the Bronze and never been refinished and cover with polyurethane to make them bright plagues instead of almost black metal sheets on a black stone wall). Someone Challenged the ten Commandment plague and the first thing Pittsburghers asked is where was this Plague? How did it look? People who caught the bus at that intersection did not remember ever seeing them. That is how inconspicuous the plagues were. The Court dismissed the complaint for the all of the Plagues had been installed prior to WWI (With the possible exception of the Pledge of Allegiance which I believe is from the 1950s) and they were NOT on the main entrance to the Allegheny County Courthouse and most people just ignored them and went on their way (Even while waiting for a bus at the bus stop where the Plaques were located). Now the Plaintiff would have had a Case if the County had "Cleaned" up the Plaque by using some Braso but the County had no such plans. Thus the Ten Commandments is still on the Allegheny County Courthouse, as dark as ever.
I give the example of the Allegheny County Courthouse for it is a clear example of the Courts NOT wanting to rewrite history do to the fact our view on State and Church has changed since WWI (When Substantial Due Process became part of the Constitutional law and with it the application of the Bill of Rights to the States under the concept that a Violation of the Bill of Rights is a denial of Equal Protection of the Laws as imposed on the States via the 15th Amendment to the Constitution passed in the post Civil War Era). Prior to the 1950s something like the Ten Commandments was consisted permitted under Federal Law, it is only starting in the 1950s that you start to see a more fundamental view of Separation of Church and State on the State Level (Through you see some of this as early as the 1690s when Pennsylvania was founded with no Colonial Religion, Maryland did it earlier but changed their law to permit only Protestantism during the Colonial Period, thus Pennsylvania is the oldest State with something the comes close to Separation of Church and State. During the period after the Bill of Rights was passed (The 1790s) many southern States ended their State Churches, but this was more to free the States of caring for people on Welfare, which was run by the State Churches, then any real attempt to separate Church and State (Massachusetts kept support for their State Church till 1837, the last state to do so, 1837 was the year of one of the Worse Recession in US History and thus Massachusetts did it for the same reason the South did it in the 1790s, to save money by cutting back on Welfare, which was run by the State Church).
By the next time we had a severe Economic downturn (the 1870s) the States had separated themselves from the Church. The Replacement for the Church was to till the people on relief (Widows and Orphans) was to West and steal lands from the Native Americans (Yes, one of the prices for Separation of Church and State was the Westward Expansion and expulsion of the Native Americans, those people on relief had to go someplace and the States were all willing to send such people Westward out of their States.
Yes, the expansion of the Separation of Church and State can be seen in first periods of long term depression (The 1790s and the 1830s). By the time the Depression of the 1870s, 1890s and 1930s came around Separation was already a fact of life and with the Settlement of the American West Welfare had to be reinvented (Stating in the 1870s in urban areas more to get women NOT to support their husbands during labor Strikes, i.e. Women whose husband went on strike were DENIED assistance for it was found such women supported their Husband's decision to go on Strike, but women without husband, or whose husband had left her, were entitled to welfare benefits. This was the Start of the "Man in the House Rule". The purpose of it in the 1870s was to separate the women from their Husbands so if the women did anything to support their husband being on strike, any and all benefits would be cut. No support for husband meant women with children could get Welfare. This was expanded to rural areas during the 1930s for similar reasons (Mining Communities seem to have it before the 1930s for the same reason as urban areas starting in the 1870s as a way to control workers who wanted to go on strike).
As one person told me, there are cost to EVERYTHING and we tend to ignore the cost of America's Separation of Church and State (Especially the westward expansion, encouraged by widows losing their church based welfare and being told instead to go west and settle some land). The Court has a history of ignoring this history, but it exists and the Court does NOT want to rewrite history more then it has to by ordering older Ten Commandments monuments removed.
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