The Freedom From Religion Foundation has taken another school to court, this time to have a decades-old Ten Commandments monument removed from the front of the building. But one attorney doesn't think the argument will stand.
FFRF is demanding that the large stone Decalogue displayed in front of Valley High in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, be removed.
Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel cites Van Orden v. Perry -- a similar case in Texas that went before the Supreme Court in 2005.
"That particular monument was upheld," Staver recalls. "This is a six-foot-tall, two-ton granite monument with the Ten Commandments that said 'I am the Lord, thy God' in large, capital letters at the very top. And the Supreme Court upheld that as constitutional."
School Board president Robert Pallone promises to fight the lawsuit, and the Liberty Counsel president says that is important.
"I believe it's important for our constitutional freedoms. The Freedom From Religion Foundation simply thinks that by sending a letter, they can wipe the landscape clean of our Judeo-Christian heritage and history and anything that smacks of any relation to religion," Staver asserts. "No matter how educational it may be, they want to remove it."
The FFRF claims the monument "impermissibly coerces students to … adopt the favored religious view of the district."