This Week in God (Maddow blog) [View all]

"First up from the God Machine this week is a story out of Oklahoma we’ve been watching, involving state officials endorsing a Christian monument at the state Capitol – even after the state Supreme Court ruled that the government-sponsored Ten Commandments statue had to be moved to private property.

As regular readers may recall, it wasn’t a close call – the state Supreme Court’s justices ruled 7-2 that the six-foot-high, stone Christian display honoring the Ten Commandments, endorsed by elected officials in 2009, is plainly at odds with the state constitution that requires state government to be neutral on matters of religion. About a week ago, as the Tulsa World reported, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) filed “a new legal argument” in defense of government-sponsored religion.
Pruitt’s latest legal filing in Oklahoma County District Court argues that the June 30 ruling is hostile to religion and therefore violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“In its decision to remove the monument, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that no matter how historically significant or beneficial to the state, state law prohibits any item on state property or to be funded by the state if it is at all ‘religious in nature,’ ” Pruitt said.

He said the ruling prohibits manifestations of faith from the public square and creates hostility toward religion.

Think about that for a minute. If state government isn’t allowed to choose an official religious text, and endorse a monument to that faith – at the state Capitol – above all other religious traditions, then in the mind of state AG, the Oklahoma Constitution is unconstitutional.

To be neutral on matters of faith, Pruitt argued, is – practically by definition – to be hostile on matters of faith."

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The whole thing:

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/week-god-91215?cid=sm_fb_maddow