It's too bad that federal judges David W. McKeague and Karl S. Forester weren't on hand for the re-hanging of the Ten Commandments in the Grayson County Courthouse Monday.
Then they might have seen that the real motive for displaying the "historical document" was to promote a religion, in violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Amid the hymns and preaching, Magistrate Presto Gary, a member of Grayson County's governing board, the fiscal court, said: "If we don't get something back for Christian people to believe in, what kind of shape will our country be in?"
His colleague on the fiscal court, Magistrate Harold Jackson, said: "This is a step forward to get Christianity back."
That endorsement of a religion by a county official reveals the local government's true motives rather clearly.
It also vindicates Judge Karen Nelson Moore, the lone dissenter on the three-judge panel, who wrote: "The county's asserted purpose here — that the display was posted for educational or historical reasons — is a sham and should be rejected."
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