This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the Ten Commandments and how they have profoundly shaped American law, government, and morality. Indeed, all of western civilization.

Our 9-0 win at the U.S. Supreme Court in Shurtleff v. City of Boston and our brief in the High Court’s Coach Kennedy case DESTROYED the Lemon Test — the rule invented by a 1980 rogue Supreme Court which was used to eliminate Christian symbols and expression from the public square. As a result of our work, Christians are now free to once again.

As a direct result of our win, the State of Louisianna has ordered the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms once again.

But our win is under fire from people who fear children might read and obey the Ten Commandments!

Liberty Counsel is heading back to court to defend faith and freedom once again . . . and millennia of history are on our side.

Help Liberty Counsel fight for the 10 Commandments and have your impact DOUBLED by a Challenge Grant.

In the 1980 case Stone v. Graham, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 opinion ordering Kentucky schools to remove the Ten Commandments from their halls, campus grounds, and walls. This was an activist Court.

The Justices wrote: “If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause” (emphasis added).

That Court further claimed that the Ten Commandments served “no constitutional educational function,” and citing the Lemon test, the Court ordered the Commandments removed.

But that Court was WRONG, and history proves it. Moreover, Lemon is now overruled.

America’s legal system is based upon English common law. English common law, in turn, was based upon “Domboc,” aka the Legal Code of AElfred the Great. It is commonly called the “Book of Dooms.” In 839 A.D., King AElfred compiled all known common laws into one book. The book’s prefix began with the Ten Commandments and included Mosaic law and Christian ethics throughout the known common laws of the time. Throughout the book, King AElfred paraphrased biblical passages as illustration and instruction.

For example, in one section, King AElfred admonished judges to “Doom (Old Sussex word for judge) very evenly! Do not doom (judge) one doom (judgment) to the rich; another to the poor! Nor doom one doom to your friend; another to your foe!” This is a direct reference to Leviticus 19:15, which states, “You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly.”

The “Code of AElfred” became the basis for English common law, which, in turn, became the basis for the Magna Carta, both of which became the basis of American law and the underpinning of our U.S. Constitution.

As a result, the Ten Commandments and biblical law are referenced in colonial charters and later in state constitutions. Twelve of the 13 original colonies adopted the entire Decalogue into their civil and criminal laws.

Help Liberty Counsel restore the Judeo-Christian values that made America great.

For instance, in 1610, Virginia codified the first commandment into law when it required its leaders to give “allegiance” to God, “from whom all power and authority is derived,” and who is the “King of kings, the Commander of commanders, and Lord of hosts.”

The 1780 Constitution of Massachusetts codified the second commandment into its constitution, stating in Part I, Article II, “It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the SUPREME BEING, the great creator and preserver of the universe.”

The Third Commandment, to not take the Lord’s name in vain, was adopted by Virginia in 1610 (“That no man blaspheme God’s holy name upon the pain of death”) and by Connecticut in 1639.

The Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” was adopted by Virginia in 1610, New Haven in 1653, New Hampshire in 1680, Pennsylvania in 1682 and 1705, South Carolina in 1712, North Carolina in 1741, and Connecticut in 1751.

The list goes on and on. But the historical reality is that our nation and our laws were predicated upon the Ten Commandments.

The Lemon Test ignored this history and attempted to divorce America’s history and law from the law of God. But with Liberty Counsel’s historic 9-0 win in Shurtleff v. City of Boston, and our amicus brief in the Coach Kennedy case, the Lemon Test has been relegated to the dustbins of bad jurisprudence. As a result, our schools may now post the Ten Commandments, as both history and constitutional education, as well as for the moral development of our youth.

The state of Louisiana moved forward with a new law requiring public schools to post the 10 Commandments beginning in the 2025 school year.

But now anti-Christian activists, history deniers, and the ACLU are joining together in a lawsuit which seeks to yank those 10 Commandments right back out of Louisiana schools.

It took Liberty Counsel decades to destroy Lemon. But now we must fight to protect that legacy, and restore all that has been stolen by the courts, especially Louisianian’s rights to display God’s Word — the undeniable foundation of our laws — in classrooms.

Please help us restore the faith of this nation with your generous gift today. Every donation made today will be DOUBLED IN IMPACT, thanks to a special Challenge Grant established to help fund our crucial legal work!

Mat Staver

Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel