A New Mexico city's Ten Commandments monument is in jeopardy after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in a lower court ruling that ordered the display removed outside of city hall.
The five-foot tall monument was erected on the lawn outside of the Bloomfield City Hall in 2011 and paid for with private funds, NBC News reported. Two residents filed a lawsuit against the city a year later and lower courts ruled in their favor to remove the monument.
The city appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, stating that it had issued conflicted rulings on such monuments on public property, NBC noted. The high court did not give a reason why it declined to hear the case, leaving the lower court rulings to stand, per the network.
Bloomfield city manager Eric Strahl told KOB-TV that city council members will have a chance to talk about their next legal steps during an executive meeting next Tuesday night. The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian nonprofit organization, expressed disappointment over the ruling, the television station stated.
"In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court had the opportunity to affirm, as it recently did, that 'an Establishment Clause violation is not made out any time a person experiences a sense of affront from the expression of contrary religious views,'" ADF senior counsel David Cortman said, per KOB-TV. "We hope the court will take advantage of a future case to resolve the confusion that reigns in the lower courts on this issue."
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, though, hailed the decision, which gives a 2016 ruling by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals the final word in ordering the monument removed.
"This is a victory for the religious liberty of people everywhere," ACLU of New Mexico executive director Peter Simonson said in a statement. "The Supreme Court's decision to let the rulings against the monument stand sends a strong message that the government should not be in the business of picking and choosing which sets of religious beliefs enjoy special favor in the community."
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.