WINDER, Ga. - A Ten Commandments plaque still hangs in a hallway at the Barrow County Courthouse in northeast Georgia, though a federal judge has ordered Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building.
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The U.S. Supreme Court this week declined to hear an appeal of the Alabama case, and Chief Justice Moore's fellow justices ordered the granite monument removed from the rotunda of the Montgomery building.
Though the Barrow County Ten Commandments display hasn't yet reached the courts, the American Civil Liberties Union this summer asked the county to remove it, citing resident complaints and court precedents against government displays with the biblical document.
Barrow County Commission Chairman Eddie Elder said this week the Ten Commandments plaque is still hanging in the courthouse, and he has not seen court papers or heard lawsuit threats from the ACLU.
"I haven't heard anything from them recently," Mr. Elder said.
The commission told the ACLU that it will keep the Ten Commandments display as a secular expression of American law.
"The Ten Commandments have an independent secular meaning in our society as a foundational legal document and as a significant basis of American law," the commission said in a letter to the ACLU.
The commission sent the letter after a public hearing June 30 in which 200 people voiced their support for the display. Commissioners voted unanimously to leave it up and formally agreed to seek legal help from the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal group based in Washington that advocates prayer in schools and government displays of the Ten Commandments.
In July, Mr. Elder said the commission was prepared to go to court to defend the display and County Attorney Currie Mingledorff said he expected the case would end up in court.
Gerry Weber, a spokesman for the ACLU, said in July that he was waiting to see if commissioners changed their minds.
"We're giving them a little bit of time to see if that's their final decision," he said.
In its original request to remove the display, the ACLU cited court precedents that denied the legality of Ten Commandment displays in government buildings.
The county said there are court cases that support keeping the display.
