Oklahoma Court Rules for Removal of Ten Commandments
On Tuesday night, the major broadcast networks refused to cover the latest news regarding the fight for religious liberty as Oklahoma’s Supreme Court ruled hours earlier that a Ten Commandments monument at the State Captiol grounds in Oklahoma City must be removed due to it being “obviously religious in nature” and “an integral part of the Jewish and Christian faiths.”
While the networks ignored this story, the Fox News Channel’s The Kelly File dedicated a full segment to the decision with host Megyn Kelly explaining that it’s “what some are calling a new blow to the faithful” and possibly the start of “religiously based divisiveness” that Justice Stephen Breyer (surprisingly) warned of in a 2005 case about a similar statue in Texas.
Kelly noted that the move by Oklahoma’s highest court comes “just days after the U.S. Supreme Court redefined the tradition of marriage” and was challenged by Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Priutt.
Despite there being a 2005 Supreme Court case that upheld a Ten Commandments statue in Texas as constitutional, Kelly declared that “the Oklahoma Supreme Court says it has got to go.”
The FNC host then brought on senior political analyst Brit Hume and she quoted from Breyer’s concurring opinion in the case Van Orden v. Perry where the liberal justice stated that decision that would have resulted in the statue’s removal “would lead to ‘the removal of many long standing’ Ten Commandments in public ‘and could thereby create the very kind of religiously based divisiveness that the Constitution seeks to avoid.’”
The 7-2 ruling, Kelly determined, signals “that apparently, the Oklahoma Supreme Court is not” concerned about “religiously-based divisiveness” within the same “week when religious liberty is already coming under fire.”
With Breyer having ruled in favor of gay marriage on Friday, Hume ruled that “we’ll see if Justice Breyer…feels the same way” about religious liberty like he did in the 2005 decision if the Oklahoma case reaches the Court.
The relevant portions of the transcript from FNC’s The Kelly File on June 30 can be found below.
FNC’s The Kelly File
June 30, 2015
9:00 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Breaking Tonight; OK Supreme Court: Remove 10 Commandments]
MEGYN KELLY: Also breaking tonight. What some are calling a new blow for the faithful, just days after the U.S. Supreme Court redefined the tradition of marriage. Tonight, Oklahoma’s Attorney General is challenging a State Supreme Court decision there that’s declared a monument of the Ten Commandments is a religious symbol and must be removed from the grounds of the state capitol. Attorney General Scott Pruitt had argued that the monument was identical to a Texas monument found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court not long ago. No matter, the Oklahoma Supreme Court says it has got to go. Brit Hume is our Fox News senior political analyst. Brit, thank you for being here and so, I looked back, because I was working for you down in the D.C. bureau when the federal court case on the Ten Commandments was decided and it was unusual group that upheld the monument on the grounds of the Texas state capitol and the collection included Justice Breyer one of the most liberal justices on the court and what he said when he said that the monument can stay. It’s been there for a long time. It is religious but historical symbol, the Ten Commandments speak to our history and what this liberal justice said at the time, Brit, was a contrary decision would “lead to the removal of many long standing Ten Commandments in public and could thereby create the very kind of religiously based divisiveness that the Constitution seeks to avoid.” And so, nonetheless, here we go with the religiously based divisiveness that he was concerned about and that apparently the Oklahoma State Supreme Court is not in a week when religious liberty is already coming under fire.
BRIT HUME: Well, there you go, Megyn. I mean, obviously, the Oklahoma attorney general is going to challenge this. It will end up before the Supreme Court and we’ll see if Justice Breyer and the rest of the majority feels the same way. The cases appear to be pretty comparable, so perhaps this monument will end up surviving.
KELLY: What you are hearing from people online already – this story is going crazy on the Fox News website. People are clicking on it in record numbers. They are interested. They want to know why the Ten Commandments can’t stand because just days ago, we got a monumental Supreme Court decision on gay marriage and many people felt ok, even people who supported gay marriage said, ok, gay marriage is legal now and constitutional in every state and yet what happens to the faith who have genuinely held objection. What will happen to them? And then you have a Supreme Court of Oklahoma saying, here’s what’s going to happen to you. No more ten commandments on the public grounds. We can have the White House in rainbow but cannot have the ten commandments on the state capitol grounds and people are wondering whether this kind of – what they view as intolerance is what the founders envisioned or what the country wants.
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