In 2013, a Christian group was given permission to erect a granite monument of the Ten Commandments in front of the Bradford County Courthouse. In response, the group American Atheists sued and won the right to erect their own monument. This is the first atheist monument on public land in the United States.
This is a 1,500-pound bench and four-foot-tall obelisk engraved with quotes from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, American Atheist founder Madalyn Murray O’Hair is quoted from her opening statement to the Supreme Court about prayer in schools, in 1959: “An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated.” The monument also features an excerpt from the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by President John Adams, which declares “The United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion.”
The obelisk includes a list of ten punishments for breaking the ten commandments, such as Deuteronomy 13:10, which says to “stone him with stones” so “that he die” in reference to people who worship other gods. (The first commandment reads, “You shall have no other gods before me.”) The cost, $6,000, was covered by a grant from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.
