Religion seems to be a hot topic in American politics lately. The questions of gay marriage, stem cell research and abortion have all come to the forefront of political debate, and the courts have not been immune. In the past year, the Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance and held that the Ten Commandments had to be removed from former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's courthouse.

This past week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard testimony on two cases involving the public display of the Ten Commandments. Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. ACLU ask the Court to decide whether these displays violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting state-sanctioned religion. The first case concerns a granite monument of the Ten Commandments displayed on the grounds of the Texas state capitol in Austin. In 1961, a fraternal organization gave the monument as a gift. In the second case, two Kentucky counties have prominently displayed the Ten Commandments in their courthouses labeling them "the precedent legal code upon which the civil and criminal codes of the Commonwealth of Kentucky are founded ..."

To decide whether these displays amount to a public sanctioning of religion, we should first examine previous cases similar to this case that may have set a precedent. In Lemon v. Kurtzman the Court established a three-pronged test for determining whether a law violates the Establishment Clause. According to this test, to be constitutional, a statute must have a secular legislative purpose, have principal effects which neither advance nor inhibit religion and not have an excessive government entanglement with religion.

Neither display seems to violate part three of the Lemon Test since it would be an exaggeration to say that a display of a religious symbol blurs the line between state and religion. However, both the Texas and Kentucky cases run into significant problems with parts one and two of the test. What exactly is the secular purpose of posting the Ten Commandments on government property? Defenders of the displays have argued (I believe insufficiently) that the Ten Commandments are historically significant to the development of law and legal theory in this country-that in fact, all law is founded on Judeo-Christian premises. Therefore, the display shows appreciation for the founding principles of this country, a perfectly secular goal.

The most obvious rebuttal to this explanation is that there are plenty of non-religious ways of showing appreciation for the founding ideals of this country. However, examining this argument on its face, we can find numerous other difficulties. The argument seems to have some traction in the Kentucky case because the display is surrounded by legal texts. But while there is some truth that law is derived from Judeo-Christian premises, the religious context of the Ten Commandments can't just be swept aside. If we agree it can, then all religious symbols, by virtue of their presence, direct or indirect in American legal founding, are legal symbols. What, then, is to stop us from the display of crosses or pictures of Jesus in our state buildings?

Even if we can distinguish between religious symbols that are legal symbols and religious symbols that in all senses violate the first part of the Lemon Test, we still run afoul of part two. No matter what the purpose of the display is, the result is that it advocates religion. However else they may be interpreted, the Ten Commandments are fundamentally a religious symbol. One can't see them and not think about God and the religion behind them. While some parts of the Ten Commandments include prohibitions against theft and murder that coincide with secular law, other parts are blatantly religious, such as observing the Sabbath day and worshipping God.

In 1980, Stone v. Graham acknowledged the religious effect of the posting of the Ten Commandments. In this case, the Court found that the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms in Kentucky (unsurprisingly, this is another case concerning Kentucky) was a violation of the first amendment because it was plainly religious.

Over the years, the Supreme Court has struck down various attempts by state governments to impose religion in their territories. The Court has ruled against school prayer (Engle v. Vitale), nativity symbols (Alleghany v. ACLU) and other attempts at religious coercion. It is time for the Court to once again rule against the state imposition of religion into the public sphere by ruling against both these cases.

Sidman can be reached at mrsidman@amherst.edu