Photo courtesy The Oklahoman
Rep. Mike Ritze, who paid for the Ten Commandments monument at the state Capitol, released the following statement following a ruling today by the state Supreme Court rejecting the state’s request to reconsider its previous ruling that the monument violates a section of the state Constitution.
“I am very disappointed in the Court’s decision. The Court has neglected decades of its own legal precedent in order to hand down a political decision. In 1973, Judge Alfred P. Murrah ruled that an identical monument bearing the Ten Commandments was perfectly constitutional where it stood in Salt Lake City. If this is the Court’s opinion, it threatens all displays on state property that contain religious imagery. It seems like the only available option is to remove this section of the Constitution that the Court relied on in making its decision It is my hope the Legislature and the governor will take appropriate actions to repeal this section of the Oklahoma Constitution in hopes of restoring the appropriate legal analysis forged by Judge Murrah decades ago.”
Wrong. However much one might dislike the opinion, it’s correct, based on the Oklahoma Constitution. The Salt Lake City case was NOT an Oklahoma case, and Judge Murrah was a federal judge, applying law other than Oklahoma law.
That’s why we need to amend the Oklahoma Constitution.