Media Coverage

Local Hindus become involved in church-state case

Nonprofit group files brief with U.S. Supreme Court over monument in Texas
Inside Bay Area
By Rob Dennis

January 16, 2005

A Hindu nonprofit group with a large Fremont membership has joined the hot-button debate over the separation of church and state, filing a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court opposing a monument of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas Capitol.

The Hindu American Foundation spearheaded the filing of an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in the case, one of the most anticipated issues to come before the court this year.

Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for March 2.

The Tampa, Fla.-based foundation is an advocacy group for U.S. Hindus. About a fifth of its 5,000 members live in the Bay Area, including foundation President Dr. Mihir Meghani of Fremont.

"The display of the Ten Commandments monument on government grounds implies exclusion of those who do not follow all the beliefs enshrined in the monument," Meghani said. "As an organization committed to the American and Hindu principles of pluralism, tolerance and understanding, the Hindu American Foundation felt a duty to give the perspectives of millions of Americans the lower courts failed to hear."

For the brief, filed last month, the foundation joined with nine co-signatories on behalf of Hindus, Buddhists and Jains in the United States. It argues that the monument violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits laws "respecting an establishment of religion."

In addition to the foundation, the 39-page brief was signed by Arsha Vidya Pitham, Arya Samaj of Michigan, the Hindu International Council Against Defamation, the Hindu University of America, Navya Shastra, Saiva Siddhanta Church, the Federation of Jain Associations in North America, the Interfaith Freedom Foundation and prominent Buddhist scholar and director of the Tibet House, Professor Robert Thurman.

The case — brought in 2003 by Thomas Van Orden against Texas Gov. Rick Perry — asks for the removal of the Ten Commandments monument from the Capitol grounds. The Supreme Court decided to hear the case after the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the monument could remain in place.

The appeals court noted that the monument is one of 17 on the grounds, has been there for four decades, and has secular as well as religious conotations.

"We are not persuaded that a reasonable viewer touring the Capitol and its grounds, informed of its history and its placement, would conclude that the State is endorsing the religious rather than the secular message of the decalogue," the three-judge panel ruled.

A team of attorneys from the Boston-based Goodwin Procter law firm worked pro bono to prepare the brief, which argues that the Ten Commandments are a cornerstone of the Judeo-Christian theology.

The monument shows that Texas government endorses the majority religion of the state and informs non-Judeo-Christians that they are "political outsiders," according to the brief.

"The lower courts erred by failing to consider the effect of this monument on non-Judeo-Christians," according to the brief. "The Ten Commandments Monument sends the message to such non-Judeo-Christians that the State of Texas endorses Judeo-Christian religions and that Judeo-Christians are insiders while all others are outsiders."

The full brief may be viewed at http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org/campaigns_10_commandments-amicus_brief.pdf. The docket for the case may be viewed on the Supreme Court's Web site at www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/03-1500.htm.