The man behind the hammer and the nail

Joe Westbury

Bill Brown, Barrow County Commissioner

Barrow County Commissioner Bill Brown didn’t think too much of the firestorm he was about to set off when he placed the Ten Commandments on a wall in a breezeway in the county courthouse.

The incident occurred around the time when Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore was receiving national attention for his refusal to remove a 5,300-pound Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama State Judicial Building in Montgomery.

While there are some similarities between the Georgia and the Alabama case, the primary difference in Georgia is that it centers on the right of a private citizen to acknowledge God through the placement of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse.

Brown, a resident of Bethlehem and a member of Bethlehem First Baptist Church, said he was asked by a Barrow County resident if a copy of the document could be placed in the courthouse. As a county commissioner he then polled each commissioner individually. Armed with a unanimous approval he set off to place the framed copy in the building.

The display is not in a prominent position and could easily be overlooked by anyone entering any of the main doors of the facility.

“The document does not tell you that you have to worship any one religion and does not force itself on you in any manner,” he explained.

“While I did place this here on behalf of a tax-paying citizen, I do believe that we have the same right in Barrow County to acknowledge God as the U.S. Supreme Court has, which has the Ten Commandments and other Christian symbols displayed throughout its chambers and on its building.”

“Only one person has objected to the document’s presence and from what I understand about math, I clearly understand that to be a minority,” Brown continued.

“There has been no outcry from the people of Barrow County. Not one resident has come to any of our commissioners to ask that the Commandments be removed.”

The ACLU has refused to identify the plaintiff in the case.