Opinion ID: 184115
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Endorsement Test

Text: Although failure under any one of the Lemon prongs deems governmental action violative of the Establishment Clause, McCreary I, 354 F.3d at 458, and Defendant violated the Establishment Clause based on Lemon's first prong, its is also helpful to consider Lemon's second, endorsement, prong. As reformulated in recent years, the second prong of Lemon asks whether the government action has the purpose or effect of endorsing religion. Mercer, 432 F.3d at 635. Under the endorsement test, the government violates the Establishment Clause when it acts in a manner that a reasonable person would view as an endorsement of religion. This is an objective standard, similar to the judicially-created reasonable person standard of tort. ... [T]he inquiry here is whether the reasonable person would conclude that [defendant's] display has the effect of endorsing religion. Id. at 636. See also McCreary I, 354 F.3d at 458 (internal citations omitted). In this case, as in the prior case involving Judge DeWeese, the Court asks, whether a reasonable observer acquainted with the text, history, and implementation of DeWeese's display of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom would view it as a state endorsement of religion. The inquiry must be viewed under the totality of the circumstances surrounding the display, including the contents and the presentation of the display, because the effect of the government's use of religious symbolism depends on context. Ashbrook, 375 F.3d at 492. In determining what constitutes a constitutionally permissible display of the Ten Commandments in a governmental building ... the symbols must be interconnected in a manner that is facially apparent to the observer and the interconnection must be secular in nature. When secular and non-secular items are displayed together, we consider whether the secular image detracts from the message of endorsement; or if rather, it specifically links religion and civil government. Id. at 493. In contrast to the Ten Commandments displays in Stone, the McCreary cases, Van Orden, Mercer, and Ashbrook, the poster in this case is not merely a display of the Ten Commandments in Defendant's courtroom. It sets forth overt religious messages and religious endorsements. It is a display of the Ten Commandments editorialized by Defendant, a judge in an Ohio state court, exhorting a return to moral absolutes which Defendant himself defines as the principles of the God of the Bible. The poster is an explicit endorsement of religion by Defendant in contravention of the Establishment Clause. The poster includes both the Ten Commandments, and seven secular Humanist Precepts, (R. 17, Def. Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. A-3), in addition to four editorial comments written by Defendant. Defendant's prior poster of the Ten Commandments was invalidated partially because we found that DeWeese's display conveys a message of religious endorsement because of the complete lack of any analytical connection between the Ten Commandments and the Bill of Rights that could yield a unifying cultural or historical theme that is also secular for a reasonable observer. Ashbrook, 375 F.3d at 494. Defendant's second poster, at issue in this case, does not suffer from the same defect. Defendant's editorial comments explicitly link the Ten Commandments and the Humanist Precepts. The poster reads There is a conflict of legal and moral philosophies ... All law is legislated morality. The only question is whose. ... Ultimately, there are only two views: Either God ... or man ... Here are examples. (R. 17, Def. Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. A-3). The poster then sets out the Ten Commandments and the Humanist Precepts in two opposing columns. However, while the poster effectively links the Ten Commandments and secular principles, the poster fails the endorsement test for a different reason. To survive endorsement test scrutiny, the interconnection [between the religious and secular displays] must be secular in nature. Ashbrook, 375 F.3d at 493. Here it is not. Rather, by stating that the moral absolutes of the God of the Bible are the fixed moral standards for restoring the moral fabric of this nation, (R. 17, Def. Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J., Ex. A-3), that should triumph in the conflict of legal and moral philosophies raging in the United States, the poster specifically links religion and civil government. Ashbrook, 375 F.3d at 493. Defendant's poster thus violates the Establishment Clause under Lemon's endorsement test. Finally, we will not discuss Lemon's third entanglement prong inasmuch as parties did not address it in their briefs. Brown v. Crowley, 229 F.3d 1150 (6th Cir. 2000) (table) (noting that inadequate briefing constitutes waiver).