Bill passes to display holy rules at Capitol

Rep. Kim Hammer (center) is congratulated Wednesday by Reps. Tim Lemon and Sheilla Lampkin after the bill to allow a monument to the Ten Commandments on the Capitol grounds won final approval in the House.
Rep. Kim Hammer (center) is congratulated Wednesday by Reps. Tim Lemon and Sheilla Lampkin after the bill to allow a monument to the Ten Commandments on the Capitol grounds won final approval in the House.

Lawmakers easily approved a bill Wednesday that would allow a private group to erect a monument of the biblical Ten Commandments on the state Capitol grounds.

Senate Bill 939 by Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow, passed through the House of Representatives on a 72-7 vote and was delivered to the office of Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

Proponents of the monument, which would not involve public money, said it would be modeled after similar monuments that have been erected in other public venues, including one outside the Texas Capitol.

On Wednesday, the bill's House co-sponsor, Rep. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, said that the purpose of the monument was not to assert the dominance or preference of one religion.

The purpose for a Ten Commandments display, Hammer argued, is historical. The foundation of the American democratic experiment was imbued with a reverence for the biblical rules.

"There is no doubt that the Founding Fathers outlined the moral foundations as they developed a free society, [one] resting on a firm moral foundation [where] they articulated the first principles of a political organization," Hammer said. "Thus they were meant not only to serve the 18th century but generations to come. ... The founders drafted an extraordinarily thoughtful plan of government, but it was up to us and to each generation to preserve and protect it."

Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, was the only legislator to speak against the legislation. He pointed out that though the nation's founders were predominantly Christians, they also built into the nation's Bill of Rights a clause that prevented the supremacy of one religion over another.

Walker suggested that those behind the bill were itching for a legal fight that they would likely lose given the track history of similar efforts in other states.

SB939 is modeled after legislation from Oklahoma that led to the installation of a Ten Commandments monument on its Capitol grounds in 2012.

Earlier this year, a federal lawsuit challenging the monument was dismissed for lack of standing.

A legal challenge to the decades-old monument in Texas failed at the U.S. Supreme Court on a 5-4 vote. That same day, the same court ruled against similar, more recent displays in Kentucky courthouses, holding that those did violate the U.S. Constitution.

But Walker pointed to Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was removed from office in 2003 after he refused to follow a federal court order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Judicial Building. Alabama voters returned Moore to the same post in 2013.

"I do not know why it is necessary to take on issues that are divisive," Walker said. "When can we come to our senses to determine we don't have to challenge things ... where we have lost ... and continue that confrontation with the federal government. ... It is not necessary for us to repeat history that we know will fail."

Hammer pointed out various religious icons in and around the Capitol, including references to God in both legislative chambers and an angel on the Confederate war monument.

Hammer asked if the legislators should "sandblast" off the biblical references or "use the sword to cut off the head" of the Confederate monument's angel.

"We're not here to establish a religion. To be honest, that's been done by past and current generations in this state," Hammer said. "The evidence is all around."

Metro on 04/02/2015

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