Oklahoma Voters Will Decide What Happens to the 10 Commandments

New efforts have been made to reinstate the Ten Commandments monument removed from the grounds of the Oklahoma's state Capitol.

Oklahoma House of Representatives voted in favor of allowing the state to determine whether to remove an article of the state constitution. The article prohibits the use of state funds to support religion.

Oklahomans will now have the opportunity to vote in November. They will decide if the constitutional mandate should be abolished or upheld. If it is abolished it will pave the way for the Ten Commandments monument to be reinstated on Capitol grounds. 

"Since the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision in June regarding the Ten Commandments monument, my constituents wanted to know what could be done," Rep. John Paul Jordan, an attorney who sponsored the bill in the House, said.

"I knew it would be a difficult proposition to undo the ruling, so we looked at giving voters the opportunity to remove the basis for the ruling."

When the monument was initially commissioned by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2009 it was privately funded.

It wasn't until it was erected on the grounds of the Capitol that it became the center of controversy. 

Baptist Separatist minister Bruce Prescott complained that the monument violated the separation of church and state and filed a lawsuit with the ACLU challenging the display.

"I sincerely believe it is not the place of the government to co-opt this sacred scripture for political purposes," Prescott said in 2015. 

Prescott explained that he felt government officials were operating under pretense by erecting the monument. He said they have secular reasons and were hoping to evade the ban in the state constitution prohibiting the government from promoting religion.

"When I heard that the Oklahoma Supreme Court recognized this and ordered officials to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the capitol grounds, one word came to mind: Amen," he said.  

Ryan Kiesel, the ACLU's executive director, said that even if voters decide in favor of abolishing the section of the constitution and return the monument to the Capitol, a challenge against the vote would likely prevail under the federal Constitution.