Contact: Liberty Counsel Public Relations Department, 800-671-1776

HARLAN, Ky., Oct. 3 /Standard Newswire/ -- A federal district court has dismissed a lawsuit that the ACLU of Kentucky filed against Harlan County regarding a display in the public schools that includes the Ten Commandments. Liberty Counsel represents Harlan County in the lawsuit filed by the ACLU, which claimed that the display violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

The ACLU filed suit in 1999, and the lawsuit was eventually partially consolidated with two other cases involving the same display in two McCreary and Pulaski County courthouses. The display that caused the controversy was a "Foundations of American Law and Government" display containing the Ten Commandments, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Charta, the Star-Spangled Banner, the National Motto, the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution, and a picture of Lady Justice.

When the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the McCreary and Pulaski County cases in 2005, the Court held the Harlan County case pending its decision. Following the ruling on McCreary and Pulaski Counties, the Harlan County case returned to the lower court where Liberty Counsel learned that the ACLU's plaintiff no longer attended the school. Liberty Counsel then requested that the district court dismiss the lawsuit, and the lower court agreed.

The McCreary County case is back before the district court for another ruling but is likely to return to the Supreme Court, where a majority is expected to uphold the display. These displays are spreading throughout the Nation. In 2006 the Georgia legislature passed a law allowing a similar display in government buildings. In 2005, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the same Ten Commandments display in Mercer County, Kentucky, which Liberty Counsel defended. The Sixth Circuit governs KY, OH, TN and MI. Liberty Counsel defended a similar display in Elkhart County, Indiana v. Books, that was upheld by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005, which governs IL, WI and IN.

The ACLU did not ask the Supreme Court to review those cases. The obvious reason is that the ACLU no longer has a solid majority in its favor on the High Court, since Justice O'Connor retired, and is unlikely to win any Ten Commandments case that goes to the Court.

Mathew Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: "The ACLU's Ten Commandments clearinghouse agenda has hit rough waters. Since 2005, the ACLU has lost one Ten Commandments case after another. It is logical and consistent with American history that a universal symbol of the rule of law is very much at home in a court of law."