Judge sets hearing on Ten Commandments

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Aug. 7 (UPI) -- A federal judge has agreed to allow two Kentucky counties to argue that courthouse displays including the Ten Commandments are secular, not religious.

McCreary and Pulaski counties have been involved in a decade of litigation over the Commandments and three increasingly secular displays. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that local officials' history of pushing religion invalidated displays that would have been legal otherwise.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer Coffman made a temporary injunction against the displays permanent on Monday, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported. But she also said that the Kentucky counties can argue that they have now "purged the taint" of religion.

The first display was simply the Ten Commandments. The second combined the Commandments with words suggesting that the founders of the United States understood "God as the source of America's strength" and describing Jesus Christ as "the Prince of Ethics."

The third display included the Constitution, the Mayflower Compact, the Magna Charta and the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner."

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