Justice Rehnquist, dissenting.
With no support beyond its own ipse dixit, the Court concludes that the Kentucky statute involved in this case "has no secular legislative purpose," ante, at 41 (emphasis supplied), and that "[t]he pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature," ibid. This even though, as the trial court found, "[t]he General Assembly thought the statute had a secular legislative purpose and specifically said so." App. to Pet. for Cert. 37. The Court's summary rejection of a secular purpose articulated by the legislature and confirmed by the state court is without precedent in Establishment Clause jurisprudence. This Court regularly looks to legislative articulations of a statute's purpose in Establishment Clause cases and accords such pronouncements the deference they are due. See, e. g., Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 773 (1973) ("we need touch only briefly on the requirement of a 'secular legislative purpose.' As the recitation of legislative purposes appended to New York's law indicates, each measure is adequately supported by legitimate, nonsectarian state interests"); Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 613 (1971) ("the statutes themselves clearly state they are intended to enhance the quality of the secular education"); Sloan v. Lemon, 413 U.S. 825, 829-830 (1973); Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 243 (1968). See also Florey v. Sioux Falls School District, 619 F.2d 1311, 1314 (CA8) (upholding rules permitting public school Christmas observances with religious elements as promoting the articulated secular purpose of "advanc[ing] the student's knowledge and appreciation of the role that our religious heritage has played in the social, cultural and historical development of civilization"), cert. denied, post, p. 987. The fact that the asserted secular purpose may overlap with what some may see as a religious objective does not render it unconstitutional. As this Court stated in McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 445 (1961), in upholding the validity of Sunday closing laws, "the present purpose and effect of most of [these laws] is to provide a uniform day of rest for all citizens; the fact that this day is Sunday, a day of particular significance for the dominant Christian sects, does not bar the state from achieving its secular goals."
Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963), repeatedly cited by the Court, is not to the contrary. No statutory findings of secular purpose supported the challenged enactments in that case. In one of the two cases considered in Abington School District the trial court had determined that the challenged exercises were intended by the State to be religious exercises. Id., at 223. A contrary finding is presented here. In the other case no specific finding had been made, and "the religious character of the exercise was admitted by the State," id., at 224.
The Court rejects the secular purpose articulated by the State because the Decalogue is "undeniably a sacred text," ante, at 41. It is equally undeniable, however, as the elected representatives of Kentucky determined, that the Ten Commandments have had a significant impact on the development of secular legal codes of the Western World. The trial court concluded that evidence submitted substantiated this determination. App. to Pet. for Cert. 38. See also Anderson v. Salt Lake City Corp., 475 F.2d 29, 33 (CA10 1973) (upholding construction on public land of monument inscribed with Ten Commandments because they have "substantial secular attributes"). Certainly the State was permitted to conclude that a document with such secular significance should be placed before its students, with an appropriate statement of the document's secular import. See id., at 34 ("It does not seem reasonable to require removal of a passive monument, involving no compulsion, because its accepted precepts, as a foundation for law, reflect the religious nature of an ancient era"). See also Opinion of the Justices, 108 N. H. 97, 228 A.2d 161 (1967) (upholding placement of plaques with the motto "In God We Trust" in public schools).
