WEST UNION, Ohio - At least 30 people were detained yesterday for hindering workers who removed the Ten Commandments from school grounds.
Several hundred people protested a federal judge's order to remove the commandments from four schools in the Adams County/Ohio Valley School District, about 60 miles east of Cincinnati.
John Borell of the Lucas County Prosecutor's Office, said the ruling likely will have no immediate impact on a lawsuit filed by the ACLU Foundation of Ohio, Inc., to remove a Ten Commandments monument at the Lucas County Courthouse.
The Adams County protesters locked arms and knelt in prayer, temporarily blocking a crane from taking the 800-pound granite tablets from three of the schools.
Sheriff's deputies removed the protesters from school property. Deputies briefly took at least 30 protesters into custody, but later released them without filing charges.
Protesters let workers do their job after praying at North Adams High School. All of the tablets were removed by last evening from Peebles, West Union, North Adams, and Manchester high schools.
“These people are religious people and don't want to cause me or anyone else trouble,” Sheriff Kermit Howard said. “We're just here because there's a court order.”
The school district is challenging a judge's ruling that the commandments violated the separation of church and state.
“We have to make the decision in America if there's going to be local control of what we're going to teach our children,” said Dave Daubenmire, among those protesting at Peebles High.
U.S. Magistrate Timothy Hogan ruled in Cincinnati last year that it is unconstitutional to display the Ten Commandments on public school grounds.
The ACLU's suit in Lucas County, filed last year, contends the monument violates the First Amendment's prohibition against the government's establishment of religion. Mr. Borell said each case is decided on the specific circumstances.
Mr. Borell said U.S. District Court Judge James Carr could rule on the issue by the end of the year.
The monument was erected on the southeast corner of the courthouse lawn by the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1957. In 1959, the ACLU erected a tablet nearby that contains the Bill of Rights.
First Published June 10, 2003, 2:01 p.m.
