Oklahoma GOP offers to provide home for Ten Commandments monument ordered

A state panel charged with overseeing artwork at the state Capitol has ordered the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the statehouse grounds after a court found the sculpture violated the Oklahoma constitution.

Several supporters of the monument attended Tuesday’s meeting and complained about the commission’s actions. Bloomfield is appealing a 2014 federal order to remove the monument on grounds it violates a constitutional ban on using public property to support specific religions. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on their behalf, calling the monument government speech.

The group plans to enter into a closed-door session to discuss the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling that the granite monument must be removed. As The Christian Science Monitor reported, early this summer Oklahoma’s Supreme Court ordered its removal citing that the monument indirectly benefits the Jewish and Christian faiths.

“We’re going to meet with the builder who installed it and figure out the best way to remove it”, Estus said. “It just doesn’t fit the bill of the intent of the law regarding open meetings”. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt fought to keep the monument, maintaining that it serves a secular — not religious — goal.