News & Stories

Circuit Court: No Wall of Separation

January 11, 2006

In ACLU of Kentucky v Mercer County, Kentucky, a unanimous panel of the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an historic decision declaring that “the First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.” In upholding a Kentucky county’s right to display the Ten Commandments, the court affirmed that strict separatism is “a notion that simply perverts our history.” It referred to the phrase “separation of church and state” as an “extra-constitutional construct” that “has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state,” the court said. “Our nation’s history is replete with governmental acknowledgment and in some cases, accommodation, of religion.”