Oklahoma’s Ten Commandment Monument
Attorney General Scott Pruitt on Tuesday filed an additional brief at the Oklahoma Supreme Court asking the court to reconsider its recent ruling on the Ten Commandments in light of the implications to other state programs.
“The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling was wrong because it ignored the profound historical impact of the Ten Commandments, and contradicted previous decisions of the court. The court previously upheld as constitutional a 50-foot tall lighted cross on public property and blessed the construction of a chapel at a state-owned orphanage.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt
“Now, the court is bucking its own precedent and misconstruing a section of the state Constitution that permitted those displays to order the removal of the privately funded Ten Commandments display. This ruling has implications far beyond the placement of the monument. If the court is going to ignore its own precedent and interpret the state Constitution differently than before, then state Medicaid dollars spent at religiously affiliated hospitals and state scholarships used at religiously affiliated colleges and universities could be in jeopardy.
“We are asking the court to grant our petition for rehearing so we can defend the placement of the Ten Commandments monument and head off the damaging impact of this ruling on other issues,” Attorney General Pruitt said.
On June 30, the court issued a ruling ordering the Ten Commandments monument display on the state Capitol grounds to be removed. That same day, the attorney general filed a petition for rehearing of the case. The court asked the opposition to file a brief in response to the attorney general’s petition. The brief filed Tuesday by the attorney general is the reply to the response brief of the opposition.