They note that a depiction of Moses carrying the Ten Commandments adorns the walls of the Supreme Court, in a frieze that includes Hammurabi, Solon and other historical lawgivers.
A similar point was made by supporters of "under God," including the Bush administration and congressional leaders from both parties.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is shown by a monument to the Ten Commandments near the state capitol in Austin. Abbott has said he will argue the state's case before the Supreme Court.
(Harry Cabluck -- AP)
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In the Texas case the court granted yesterday, the state argues that its monument, placed among others on the capitol grounds, has no religious purpose or effect, but expresses the commandments' "historic and secular role as a foundational text for Western culture and legal codes."
In the Kentucky case, McCreary County responded to a lawsuit against a framed copy of the commandments in its courthouse by surrounding the Decalogue with an array of documents including the Declaration of Independence and the Magna Carta. This, the county maintains, shows the display's "secular purpose."
Separately yesterday, the court entered another religion-related area when it agreed to hear a case testing the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. That 2000 statute prohibits any "substantial burden on the religious exercise" of an institutionalized person unless the restriction is clearly justified and carefully limited.
The case involves charges by current and former Ohio state prisoners that officials denied them the freedom to practice Wicca and Satanism.
The prisoners said that the prison violated the legislation by denying them access to religious literature and to such "ceremonial" objects as medallions, and that this was a "substantial burden" on their free exercise of religion.
The Bush administration, which supports the legislation, had urged the court to take a different case on the same issue, but the court rebuffed that request.
In siding with the prison authorities, the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit struck down the law, ruling that it amounted to a government endorsement of religion.
The case is Cutter v. Wilkinson, No. 03-9877.
Staff writer Fredrick Kunkle contributed to this report.
