The Board of Bureau County, Illinois has decided against placing a Ten Commandments monument on the lawn of its court house in Princeton, the Bureau County Republican reports. The decision followed the receipt of a demand letter from ACLU of Illinois legal director Harvey Grossman written on behalf of a Princeton resident opposing the proposal to install the monument.
According to the ACLU letter, a government display of objects like the Ten Commandments can violate the religious liberty guarantees of the U.S. and Illinois constitutions if they are seen as having a religious purpose or having the effect of endorsing religion in general or a specific religion in particular, thus marking non-adherents as second -class citizens. The Ten Commandments are highly and inherently religious, the ACLU letter stated.
