TALLAHASSEE - Fearing the Ten Commandments and other religious staples are under attack, a group of conservative Florida lawmakers are joining a national push to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow posting of the commandments in schools, courts and other public places.
The move comes in the wake of several court fights across the country over the biblical commandments' place in American public life. Last week Alabama's chief justice was thrown off the bench for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court.
More than a dozen Republican state House and Senate members met Wednesday with leaders of a grass roots evangelical movement that wants a change to the U.S. Constitution to spell out that the Ten Commandments, the motto "In God We Trust," and other phrases referencing God can be displayed.
One of the leaders of the legislative group, Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, said he would sponsor a measure in the House next spring that, if passed, would urge Congress to change the Constitution. He said there's a groundswell of people who are like him - that perceive Christianity as under attack by a liberal court system.
"I meet people all the time who say, "Isn't there something we can do?' " Baxley said. "There is a wave of public opinion waiting."
The House measure would be purely symbolic, without any force of law. But the activists pushing it say it would send a powerful message. A similar message to Congress already has passed in Kentucky.
"The first five or six states are going to be important," said Judy Webb Sipes, a Kentucky attorney working with the evangelical ministry Light of the World in pushing the amendment, which if passed by Congress would require ratification by 38 states. Civil liberties groups reject the notion that Christianity is under attack and say efforts to protect the Ten Commandments are an attempt to force the religious beliefs of the majority onto society as a whole and use tax dollars to do it.
"There aren't restrictions on exercising religion in public places, that's not what they are interested in," said Howard Simon, director of the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "What these people want is government funding for a government-sponsored display of a religious document."
In Florida, it may not be an entirely partisan effort. Past efforts in the Legislature to pass laws encouraging public prayer in schools have been led by Democratic members of the state's legislative black caucus.
Legislators at the luncheon said they would likely try to recruit some of the black members who have been supportive in the past of prayer in schools.
