Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Allegheny County has been spared what could have been an unseemly legal controversy over whether an 85-year-old plaque of the Ten Commandments would have to be removed from the outside of the county Courthouse.

Citing a federal appeals court's ruling in a similar case in Chester County, Chief U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose has rejected a legal complaint by two plaintiffs that the plaque's display violates the separation of church and state required by the First Amendment.

This outcome is a victory for common sense, which sometimes is in scarce supply in arguments about the relationship between government and religion.

What is most important about Judge Ambrose's decision is that it does not endorse the view that some emotional defenders of the plaque hold -- that America is a Christian, or at least Judeo-Christian, nation and that there is nothing wrong with flaunting that fact even if it displeases citizens of other religions.

Judge Ambrose explicitly rejected that rationale, saying a reasonable observer "could not conclude that continued display of the Ten Commandments plaque reflects an intent by the current county officials to promote or favor one religion over another or, indeed, even to promote religion over non-religion."

The key word in that quotation, as we see it, is "continued." This was not a question of whether Allegheny County in the year 2003 should erect a Ten Commandments plaque where none existed; in this religiously diverse county, that would be divisive and possibly unconstitutional. But the issue here, as in Chester County, was whether an existing plaque should be removed.

As we observed in a previous editorial supporting county Chief Executive Jim Roddey's position on this issue, the plaque, while admittedly religious in its content, is part of the historical and architectural character of the courthouse. It dates from a time when America was less religiously diverse, and government -- including the courts -- was more accepting of what would today be an unseemly entanglement of church and state.

Judge Ambrose's decision and the appeals court ruling on which it is based respect that difference between the present and the past. Had she ruled otherwise, the controversy over removing the plaque likely would have stirred up more animosity between believers and nonbelievers than the plaque itself ever did.

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