Indiana Governor Seeks Court Order to Install New Ten Commandments Monument at Capitol

Governor Mike Braun of Indiana submitted a request to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana seeking an order that would allow a newly designed Ten Commandments monument to be installed on the Statehouse lawn, together with the Bill of Rights and the preamble to the 1851 state constitution. The original monument, which stood from 1958 until it was damaged by vandalism in 1991, has been slated for replacement, but a 2000 court ruling and a subsequent permanent injunction barred its placement.

The Indiana Civil Liberties Union and additional plaintiffs contend that the monument would breach the First Amendment’s prohibition on government establishment of religion. The replacement statue has spent over two decades outside a Bedford church, according to Becket, the firm representing Governor Braun and the attorney general’s office. Senior counsel Joseph Davis criticized the civil liberties group’s legal challenge, describing it as an effort to continue the vandal’s work through the courts.