The Bible does not say what type of stone The Ten Commandments were carved into, but ever since the 1956 movie of the same name, masons have carved them into granite.
The statue of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol looks identical to the ones in Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma, because they're literally clones of statues of director Cecil B. DeMille had built to promote his movie.
Arkansas’ two grey half-ovals have stood erect since 2018, and according to a federal judge, they've been unconstitutional every day since.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker dusts off an eight-year-old lawsuit with a slate of litigants like a “Coexist” bumper sticker.
The Rev. Victor Nixon, a Methodist minister who died before the suit could fully resolve, whose sermons often focused on Jesus’ New Testament message. Rabbi Eugene Levy, who led Little Rock’s Reform synagogue.
“If they wanted to put God's word up there, they would have to do the original Hebrew which one in 100 people could read,” he told Little Rock Public Radio.
A pagan named Teresa Dorsey-Gryder, who said in a statement the Constitution “protects all persons of belief and nonbelievers.”
Several groups joined the suit like The American Humanist Association, the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers. A group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation, whose actual telephone hold music is a song about the separation between church and state.
And, of course, The Satanic Temple.
All of them say this monument is wrong. Not everyone is Christian. They point to the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
And the Satanists made another point: if the Christians get to put up a Ten Commandments statue, we should get to put up our own monument: a 1-ton bronze statue of a goat-headed, winged occult figure named Baphomet.
“We think that our monument commemorates what makes America great,” he said to the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission when he first pitched the statue. “And in our case we believe that's religious liberty.”
If you know this story, you may have watched "Hail Satan," the 2019 documentary about the temple and their monument.
These Satanists don't seem to actually believe in Satan; they believe in religious pluralism, rejecting tyranny. Satan, who in the Bible told Adam and Eve to eat from the fruit of knowledge, is a metaphor.
The group spent several years in tribulation with a politically outspoken former state senator: the deeply religious Jason Rapert.
“These people, as I say, they operate as great accusers,” he said. “So I believe they definitely are influenced by what I would call evil.”
Rapert passed the bill to build the statue when he was in the state legislature. On the phone with Little Rock Public Radio, he described The Satanic Temple as "ridiculous."
“They are no more a religion than a couple of guys sitting on a sidewalk spouting off crazy epithets.”
The verdict finding the monument unconstitutional mentions Rapert over 160 times. Large sections of it quote Rapert directly: Twitter posts, Facebook posts, his public speeches.
Rapert says the Ten Commandments aren't explicitly religious. They have historical relevance that transcends Christianity. Don't steal, don't kill – these are universal legal principles. He points out, correctly, that Moses is inscribed on the walls of the U-S Supreme Court. This is true, but so are quotes from Confucius, along with medieval, Greek and Roman lawgivers.
Judge Baker thought Rapert's history explanation was a cover story. He may claim the monument celebrates law, but his public statements show he wants to celebrate Christianity.
Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves responded.
“He always rises to the bait, and I feel like that undid him in the end.”
He says Rapert walked into traps The Satanic Temple set up. They would publicly comment on the statue. Rapert would respond. The response would confess a non-historical philosophy behind the monument. And so it goes.
“The more one could get him to speak, the more he dug the hole,” Greaves said.
But hold on. This case isn't over.
It's been eight years since the monument first went up, and since then, a lot has changed in America.
In the 1970s, a court case over tax money and Catholic schools created “The Lemon Test,” a three-pronged rule to determine if a public religious thing is constitutional.
One, does it have a secular purpose?
Two, does it have a neutral effect on people's ability to practice religion?
And three, does it tangle religion into government?
To pass the Lemon test, the answer to all three should be no.
The Lemon Test is mentioned over 40 times in Judge Baker's ruling. In her conclusion she says the monument violates “the Establishment Clause under the test set forth in Lemon.”
But in 2019 –- after the Arkansas Commandments monument was built, but before this new ruling was issued — the Supreme Court basically killed The Lemon Test.
In a case over whether to leave up a veterans' memorial in the shape of the cross, they said yes it can stay. The opinion was 7-2.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said: “scrubbing away any reference to the divine will strike many as aggressively hostile to religion."
He says the constitutionality of a monument should be measured by "reference to historical practices and understandings." So that's the new Lemon Test.
And then came the Joe Kennedy case.
A high school football coach fired for praying at the 50 yard line had to be re-hired. The Supreme Court said his termination wasn't constitutional.
Talking to the plaintiffs in this case — the ones against the monument — they generally feel like a judge said the sky is blue. There's a collective sense of: “well, duh.”
Sam Grover from the Freedom From Religion Foundation said he was “confident the court would ultimately side with us.
Anne Orsi from the Society of Free Thinkers told Little Rock Public Radio “the law is firm on our side.”
They say a Ten Commandments monument at a state capitol is clearly un-American.
But Rapert views new legal precedent with the same confidence.
“I believe we’ll be successful at the appellate level at the Eighth Circuit,” he said. “And hey, if by some odd chance it wasn't, I believe the United States Supreme Court is very capable of reminding Judge Baker that they said the Lemon Test shall not be used in the manner that you are claiming it should be.”
In a statement, Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester says his office will keep fighting for the monument in court. The statue will stay up while the ruling waits for an appeal.
The broadcast version of this story plays audio from The Sean Hannity Show on Fox News, a 2013 Rev. Victor Nixon sermon, and the trailer for the documentary Hail Satan
