DAYTON, Tenn. – The Ten Commandments monument banished from Alabama’s state judicial building began a national tour on the back of a flatbed truck on Saturday – starting outside the courthouse where the teaching of evolution was put on trial almost 80 years ago.
“The ACLU is still the enemy,” said June Griffin of Dayton, an outspoken advocate for displays of the Ten Commandments in government buildings.
About 75 people gathered to see the 5,280-pound granite monument outside the site of the Scopes Monkey Trial – where high school teacher John Scopes was convicted in 1925 of giving lessons on evolution. Many stepped up a ladder to take photos and pose beside the marker.
Ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who lost his job for defying a federal court order to remove his display from the lobby of the judicial building, approved the national tour but is not participating.
A spokeswoman for Moore said he plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the ruling. A federal judge agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups that the display was an unconstitutional government promotion of religion.
Jewell Sneed, 70, snapped photos of her 7-year-old great grandson, Jacob, standing beside the monument.
“I think it was awful for them to make them move it from the courthouse,” Sneed said. “That is what our country is based on, is God and the Bible. Why we want to take God out I don’t know. I think we are headed for big trouble when we take God out of schools and everything.”
The stop at the courthouse and at Rhea County High School – where Bible classes were taught until a federal lawsuit ended them in 2002 – were the first in a tour that could crisscross the nation for up to a year.
The tour was arranged by Americans Standing for God and Country, a Texas-based veterans’ group looking for congressional support to permanently display the marker at the U.S. Capitol. The group intends to take the monument to Washington on Oct. 22 for an “America For Jesus” rally.
The courthouse in Dayton became a flashpoint for creationism vs. evolution in 1925, when orator and presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and lawyer Clarence Darrow squared off during the prosecution of Scopes for teaching evolution instead of the biblical story of creation.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
