Ten Commandment Bill Gains in Va.

Virginia’s House of Delegates approved a bill Friday that would allow public schools to post the Ten Commandments.

The measure, which now goes to the Senate, would require the state Board of Education to write guidelines for displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms, along with the text from three secular documents: the 1st Amendment, the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Constitution.

It would be up to local school officials whether to display the texts.

The House vote was 52 to 46. Gov. Mark Warner has not taken a position on the bill.

The bill’s Republican sponsor, Delegate L. Scott Lingamfelter, said he went to great lengths to ensure the measure passes constitutional muster.

The bill originally applied only to the Ten Commandments, but was amended to include the nonreligious documents. The state attorney general’s office has said the measure does not appear to violate the constitutionally required separation of church and state.

“Some people have spoken about the intent of this bill, but as the author of this bill, let me say to you from the bottom of my heart it is not about religion,” Lingamfelter said. “It is about values. It’s about the values that were at the root of the founding of this nation.”

Opponents said the bill is about religion and argued it would be inappropriate to post the Ten Commandments next to the other documents.

“The basic idea is that we as a government will not promote any particular religion,” said Delegate William K. Barlow, a Democrat. “This bill promotes a specific belief.”

Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Virginia, said after the House vote that the inclusion of the nonreligious texts does not change the bill’s religious purpose.

“This may be an attempt to sort of dilute the religious message by putting secular messages alongside it, but it won’t work in this instance,” he said.