Not 24 hours ago I wrote about Tennessee's blatant attempt to make sure public school children were subjected to the Ten Commandments using public resources... while intentionally excluding other religious viewpoints (such as the Five Pillars of Islam).

Now, Paul Summers, Tennessee's Attorney General, has stepped into the fray. Unlike the state's county commissioners, Summers has apparently read the Constitution and understands basic Establishment Clause law. Amazingly, Summers actually made reference to the Lemon test and explained that posting the Ten Commandments would not only violate these general guidelines, but also goes directly against the Supreme Court's holding in Stone v. Graham. (That case threw out Kentucky's posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools and stated quite bluntly, "The pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature.")

Presumably, Summers realized that the moronic actions of the Bradley county commission had pretty much gutted any chance Tennessee had for arguing a "secular purpose" behind posting the Ten Commandments, and wanted to save the state the embarrassment of being smacked down in the courts. Apparently the director of the Administrative Office of the Courts in Nashville requested Summers' opinion on the matter, so we can safely presume she was concerned with the actions in Bradley county as well.

Whatever their motives, it is nice to see that some people within Tennessee's government still have a clue about the law.

-Jason

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