MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE

1999 Regular Session

To: Judiciary A

By: Representative Smith (35th)

AN ACT TO CREATE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS DEFENSE ACT; TO STATE LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS; TO DECLARE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY RIGHTS; TO REQUIRE THE EXERCISE OF JUDICIAL POWER CONSISTENT WITH THOSE DECLARATIONS; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:

SECTION 1. This act may be cited as the "Ten Commandments Defense Act."

SECTION 2. The Legislature finds the following:

(a) The Declaration of Independence declares that governments are instituted to secure certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, with which all human beings are endowed by their Creator and to which they are entitled by the laws of nature and of nature's God.

(b) The organic laws of the United States Code and the constitutions of every state, using various expressions, recognize God as the source of the blessings of liberty.

(c) The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States secures rights against laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof made by the United States Government.

(d) The rights secured under the First Amendment have been interpreted by courts of the United States Government to be included among the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.

(e) The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states, respectively, the powers not delegated to the United States Government nor prohibited to the states.

(f) Disputes and doubts have arisen with respect to public displays of the Ten Commandments and to other public expression of religious faith.

(g) Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment grants the Congress power to enforce the provisions of said amendment.

(h) Article I, Section 8, of the United States Constitution, grants the Congress power to constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court, and Article III, Section 1, grants the Congress power to ordain and establish courts in which the judicial power of the United States Government shall be vested.

SECTION 3. (1) The power to display the Ten Commandments on or within property owned or administered by the state or political subdivisions thereof is hereby declared to be among the powers reserved to the state.

(2) The expression of religious faith by individual persons on or within property owned or administered by the state or political subdivisions thereof is hereby:

(a) Declared to be among the rights secured against laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion made or enforced by the United States Government and the State of Mississippi or by any department or executive or judicial officer thereof; and

(b) Declared to be among the liberties of which no state shall deprive any person without due process of law made in pursuance of powers reserved to the states, respectively.

(3) The courts constituted, ordained and established by the state shall exercise the judicial power in a manner consistent with the foregoing declarations.

SECTION 4. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 1999.