Judge Dismisses Suit Over Religious Monument

The privately funded Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma Capitol in Oklahoma City doesn’t violate the state constitution and can stay there, an Oklahoma County judge ruled Friday. Attorneys who filed the lawsuit vowed to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

District Judge Thomas Prince granted a motion filed on behalf of the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission to block the lawsuit from going to trial.

The 6-foot-tall granite monument was authorized by the Legislature in 2009 and was erected in 2012 after Republican state Rep. Mike Ritze and his family paid nearly $10,000 for it. The monument’s placement has led others to seek their own on the Capitol grounds, including a satanic group that earlier this year unveiled designs for a 7-foot-tall statue of Satan.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of the Rev. Bruce Prescott of Norman, a Baptist minister, and others who allege the monument’s location violated the state constitution’s ban against using public property to support “any sect, church, denomination or system of religion.”

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