Roake v. Brumley

America’s tradition of religious symbols in the public square 

Religious symbols have been a fixture of American public life since before the founding. Just after declaring independence, the Continental Congress tasked Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams with designing a national seal. Both Franklin and Jefferson proposed overtly religious designs drawn from the Hebrew Bible: Franklin’s featured Moses causing the Red Sea to overwhelm Pharaoh, and Jefferson’s depicted the Israelites guided by a cloud and a pillar of fire. While the Great Seal eventually adopted a different design, it still includes religious imagery—an eye of Providence above the Latin phrase “He (God) has favored our undertakings.” 

Over the centuries, many state and local governments have followed the Founders’ lead by including religious elements in their flags, seals, and buildings to commemorate history and culture and to acknowledge the beliefs that motivated their settlers. Among the most enduring of these religious symbols is the Ten Commandments, which is even featured prominently on the walls of the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law 

Louisiana recently passed H.B. 71, which requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms by January 1, 2025. The displays must contain a specific context statement explaining the history of the Commandments in American public education, and schools have flexibility in how to design them. For example, schools may choose to incorporate the Ten Commandments alongside other historical documents, like the Declaration of Independence, the Mayflower Compact, and the Northwest Ordinance. No school board is required to spend its funds to purchase the displays; they must instead accept private donations or donated displays. 

Schools can also be even more creative in implementing the law. For example, mockups of potential displays show  how the Ten Commandments can be used to draw comparisons between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Moses, explain the structure of the House of Representatives, or explore important Supreme Court cases. 

Courts shall not stop Louisiana from displaying religious symbols 

Just five days after the governor signed H.B. 71 into law—and before any actual displays ever appeared in any classroom—the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Louisiana in federal district court. The ACLU claims the displays will harm schoolchildren by forcing them to be in the presence of religious messages in public school classrooms.

With Becket’s help, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and Louisiana Solicitor General Ben Aguiñaga are defending Louisiana against the ACLU lawsuit. Louisiana argues that the ACLU’s lawsuit is premature and should be dismissed because no displays have been installed, and that Louisiana is following a long national tradition of displaying passive religious symbols within the public view. Indeed, this case is very similar to atheist activist challenges to “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Motto “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins. Becket was able to help beat challenges to the Pledge and Motto. Courts should reject this lawsuit just as they rejected those ones.

After a federal judge agreed with the ACLU and temporarily put Louisiana’s law on hold, Louisiana filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. A panel of judges on the Fifth Circuit left the lower court’s ruling in place. The State now asks the Fifth Circuit to hear the case “en banc,” meaning in front of all active judges on the court.

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

Public square: Religion is a natural part of human culture and should not be scrubbed from the public square. 

Huntsman v. Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Revitalizing the spiritual home of the Church 

During the late 1840s, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints migrated to the American West to escape religious persecution in Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and other states. Led by the Church’s second president, Brigham Young, these pioneers eventually settled in the Salt Lake Valley, where Young selected a plot of land to build a temple dedicated to God. Today, that site—known as Temple Square—serves as the spiritual seat of the Church’s worldwide leadership and is home to the iconic Salt Lake City Temple and renowned Tabernacle Choir. 

When the area south of Temple Square needed renovation in the early 2000s, Church leaders made a religious decision to invest in its revitalization. Through its then-president Gordon B. Hinckley, the Church announced it was developing the property to protect the environment surrounding the Temple and to promote the economic vitality of the local community. Church leaders explained that the Church would not directly finance the project through tithing, the millennia-old, Scripture-based practice of voluntarily donating a portion of one’s income to the Church as an act of financial support and trust in God. Instead, it would use earnings from invested funds it had set aside for future use.  

A church community attacked from within 

Over a decade after the Church decided to revitalize the area surrounding Temple Square, businessman James Huntsman—who has deep family ties and a long history of leadership roles within the Church—sued to recoup millions of tithing dollars he had paid in religious offerings over the prior two decades. He argued the Church had committed fraud by not describing with greater clarity that the earnings from reserve funds used to finance the revitalization project had tithing as their principal. The Church explained that its statements were all true, since it never solicited, let alone used, tithes themselves for the project. Moreover, its statements could not have possibly misled anyone, least of all someone as knowledgeable about Church affairs as Huntsman, who was well aware that all Church assets have their origin in tithing. 

Protecting the Church from disgruntled donors 

In 2021, Huntsman filed a lawsuit against the Church in federal court, attempting to recover at least five million dollars of his tithing offerings. The district court ruled for the Church, concluding that all its statements about the use of tithes for the revitalization project were true. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court’s decision, ruling that a jury ought to decide whether the Church had committed fraud in not describing more clearly how it would fund the project.  

On September 20, 2023, the Church asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider the case in front of a full panel of judges. Becket filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of rehearing, arguing that the court’s decision poses a serious threat to religious institutions’ ability to carry out their missions. The brief explains that courts have no business second-guessing a church’s inherently religious decision about how to define tithing, which is itself an inherently spiritual practice. The ruling threatened religious organizations by allowing disaffected members to sue anytime they disagree with how a Church, through the exercise of its spiritual judgement, chooses to carry out its mission. 

On January 31, 2025, an eleven-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled in favor of the Church. The court held that the Church spoke truthfully in describing how tithing would be expended. Five of the judges argued further that the church autonomy doctrine bars courts from resolving disputes about a church’s internal governance. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

  • Religious Communities— Churches and religious organizations have a right to live, teach, and govern in accordance with the tenets of their faith. When the government unjustly interferes in internal church affairs, the separation of church and state is threatened. The First Amendment ensures a church’s right to self-definition and free association.