Okla. Court: Capitol Must Remove Ten Commandments Monument

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the state must remove a controversial Ten Commandments monument from the capitol in Oklahoma City, the Tulsa World reported.

The court decided that the monument violates the state constitution because it supports a religion and ordered its removal in a 7-2 vote, according to the Tulsa World.

In 2012, the Oklahoma legislature passed a bill authorizing the placement of the 6-foot-tall, 2,400-pound granite Ten Commandments monument, a gift from state Rep. Mike Ritze (R), at the state capitol. It was replaced in January after a man drove his car into the original and destroyed it, according to Oklahoma City station KOCO.

Following the Ten Commandments monument’s placement at the Oklahoma capitol, the Satanic Temple announced plans to build a monument for the capitol as well. The group had plans to unveil the statue of a Baphomet, a goat-headed deity, in Detroit in July before sending it to Oklahoma. The group’s “presence as civic-minded socially responsible Satanists serves to satirize the ludicrous superstitious fears that the word Satan tends to evoke,” the Satanic Temple spokesman Doug Mesner told Vice Media.