The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling out the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly for passing a resolution that would display the Ten Commandments inside its building.
A concerned resident reported that the Borough Assembly (Alaska’s equivalent of a county board) recently approved a resolution to permanently display the Ten Commandments and six historical documents in a lobby outside the Assembly chambers. The display was reportedly inspired by a Louisiana law requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms. The resolution’s sponsor, Assembly member Ron Bernier, has admitted that the purpose of the resolution is to display the Ten Commandments and that other documents have been included only to obfuscate the religious intention behind the display. “I wanted to find a way to put the Ten Commandments in there legally,” he said in an interview.
FFRF is asserting to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly that it cannot exhibit the Ten Commandments on public property with the intent to promote religion.
“Displaying the Ten Commandments in the Assembly chambers in this manner is not only an unconstitutional display of favoritism towards religion, it needlessly alienates and excludes borough residents who do not share the religious beliefs that the Ten Commandments embody and represent,” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line writes to Matanuska-Susitna Mayor Edna DeVries.
FFRF points out that when a government body takes the initiative to display a religious text in the lobby of its assembly chambers, and plainly states that any other documents posted alongside it are only there to attempt to hide the religious intent of the display, it demonstrates an undeniable preference for religion over nonreligion, and for those religions which subscribe to the Ten Commandments above all other faiths.
Additionally, as a matter of policy, the borough should not host a religious display. The First Commandment alone makes it obvious why the Ten Commandments should not be posted on government property. The government has no business telling citizens which god they must have, how many gods they must have, or that they must have any god at all. A full 37 percent of the American population is non-Christian, including the almost 30 percent of Americans who are nonreligious.
FFRF is urging the assembly to respect the Constitution, and the rights of conscience of all of the borough’s residents, by not allowing for the Ten Commandments to be displayed in the Assembly building.
“The Assembly must respect the rights of all residents, even those who do not share the same religious views as Assembly member Ron Bernier,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “Our secular Constitution was established with the purpose of leaving all religions out of governance in order to create a stronger sense of community. Displays like this work to drive cracks in our democracy until it splits wide open.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 40,000 members across the country, including members in Alaska. Its purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
