However, the city officials voted to remove the tablet to avoid the ACLU lawsuit. Having a granite monument outside a town city hall is not particularly important in concrete terms but it is a powerful symbol. It says something about how that community looks at law. Law is either something discovered and then legislation and ordinances brought into conformity with it or law is something fluid, constantly changing with the changes in culture. Manhattan, Kansas is saying that law that emanates from this City Hall is rooted in a set of absolutes.
Law is something discovered, sourced in a transcendent authority.
It is not simply the work of humans, who change with all the whims of culture. This is the tragedy of Manhattan. It has allowed the pressure of the ACLU to strike fear into the leaders' heart. This case powerfully symbolizes the radical shift in the view of law in the United States. This is not an issue of the separation of church and state.