The Freedom From Religion Foundation is objecting to a new Ten Commandments monument outside Amarillo City Hall — the second such display in Texas that it has recently confronted.

The state/church watchdog has sent a letter to the Amarillo mayor and City Council members contending that statements made during the monument’s dedication ceremony describing the biblical monument in explicitly religious terms demonstrate the display serving a religious purpose. Monument coordinator Trent Morgan stated that “all laws are based on a moral code and they come from the bible” and said the monument reflects “who we are as a people.” Morgan also said that the display was intended to encourage future generations to believe in God and understand that they were created “in His image.” During the ceremony, attendees prayed and proclaimed that Amarillo was being claimed for the Lord: “We’re claiming this city for the Lord. No devil’s going to come in here and take his heart, because we’re going to stand up, we’re going to fight for this city.”

Such statements undermine any claim that this monument was installed for a so-called historical purpose. Furthermore, FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor notes, “There is no historic purpose for a city or other U.S. entity to display the Ten Commandments. These biblical edicts are not part of U.S. history, our Declaration of Independence, much less our godless Constitution, whose only references to religion are exclusionary.”

FFRF Legal Counsel Chris Line has written to Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley: “Displaying the Ten Commandments in front of City Hall is not only an unconstitutional display of favoritism toward religion, it needlessly marginalizes and excludes city residents who do not share the religious beliefs that the Ten Commandments embody and represent.”

The recent push to install Ten Commandments monuments on government property in Texas is a troubling trend.

“Public officials who seek to use government institutions to promote religious messages should be censured. They have no business telling citizens how many gods to worship, which gods to worship or whether to worship any gods at all!” says Gaylor. “The First Commandment is a clear and egregious violation of the First Amendment.”

FFRF notes that the Amarillo monument comes on the heels of its separate challenge to a Ten Commandments display in Rockwall County just a few days ago.

FFRF explains that government-sponsored Ten Commandments displays alienate residents who do not share the religious beliefs represented by the monument and conflict with the constitutional principle that government must remain neutral on matters of religion. It is asking Amarillo officials to remove the monument and respect the rights of conscience of all city residents.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 41,000 members and several chapters nationwide, including more than 1,700 members and a chapter in Texas. FFRF’s purposes are to defend the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

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