Press Release

Humanists Send Message to Supreme Court:
“Secular” Displays of the Ten Commandments are a Sham

For Immediate Release - Contact: Anne Lyster (202) 238-9088
alyster@americanhumanist.org - www.americanhumanist.org

(Washington, D.C., December 13, 2004) The American Humanist Association submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court today signed by sixteen national organizations, that addresses the two Ten Commandments cases the Court will be hearing early next year.

“This brief makes clear that the Court must now declare once and for all that displays of the Ten Commandments on government property are violations of the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution,” says Tony Hileman executive director of the AHA.

Keeping religion and government separate is imperative to Humanists and others signing this brief. The brief confirms that “The content, context, and history of the displays...clearly show that the government’s purported purpose was a sham and that the primary purpose was religious.”

The broad array of religious and secular organizations joining the AHA in this brief represents those who don’t accept the Ten Commandments as articles of faith. Signing this brief which addresses McCreary County, KY, et al. v ACLU of KY, et al. and Thomas Van Orden v Rick Perry, et al., are the Association of Humanistic Rabbis, the American Ethical Union, Atheist Alliance International, the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, Equal Partners in Faith, the Humanist Society, the Humanist Institute, HUUmanists, the Institute for Humanist Studies, the International Humanist and Ethical Union, Internet Infidels, the National Center for Science Education, the Secular Coalition for America, the Skeptics Society, the Society for Humanistic Judaism, and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

AHA president and constitutional lawyer Mel Lipman describes how this amicus brief will be of key importance to the Supreme Court justices as they review this case: “This brief shows the perspective of those who are disenfranchised by public displays of the Ten Commandments. To endorse a sectarian point of view is not the business of government. Neither the age of unconstitutional displays nor the proximity of them to constitutional ones should have a bearing on the fact that state-sponsored religious displays are unconstitutional.”

To view the brief, go to http://www.americanhumanist.org/TenCommandmentsBrief.pdf.

The American Humanist Association is the oldest and largest Humanist organization in the nation. The AHA is dedicated to ensuring a voice for those with a positive nontheistic outlook, based on reason and experience, which embraces all of humanity .

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