Graven Images

At the behest of the religious right, local governments have erected tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments at courthouses and other public buildings. Next, taxpayers or the ACLU sues to remove the images, and a federal court invariably rules that they violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. That's what happened in Alabama, Indiana, Nebraska, Maryland, Kentucky, Colorado and Tennessee. So then the local authorities are stuck with the job of disposing of the tablets and paying the legal bills. In Chattanooga, where they owed $8,900, the county commissioners figured out an ingenious solution--auction off the tablets. Despite legal setbacks, the tablets keep coming. In Haines City, Florida, the Rev. Mickey Carter heads a plan to install a Foundation Rock in the taxpayer-funded Polk County Administration center. He apparently thinks he can outwit the ACLU by displaying documents of other cultures, such as Hammurabi's Code, as well as the Bill of Rights. But Hindus and Muslims need not apply. "If they want to go to India or Pakistan and put up their own rock, that's fine," Reverend Carter said.

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