State Representative Dr. Mike Ritze paid $10-thousand to create the 10 Commandments Monument. It cost another $10-thousand, raised by private groups, to have it erected at the Oklahoma State Capitol. It was a three-year project, which received a 90-percent approval from the Legislation. Then Democratic Governor Brad Henry signed it. But, two days after the monument is erected, its future is in jeopardy.

"We realized that yesterday at the installation. I was not present there, but it was immediately realized," says State Rep. Ritze, referring to the moment the errors were found on the new monument.

There are three errors. The word "Sabbath" is misspelled as "Sabbeth," and the word "maidservant" is misspelled as "maidseruant." The third error is a missing apostrophe from the word "neighbor's."

"It's pretty rare to see spelling errors on monuments, but this one is quite different than a typical monument you would make," says Gary Mosier, Sales Manager for Si Memorials, the company which created the monument. "Being done in Old English, as it is, makes it pretty difficult to read sometimes, because in this Modern Age, we're just not used to reading Old English anymore. (The crew was) working off of a rubbing of the original monument, and on the rubbing, it could have, you know, had a smudge on it that it would have appeared to be an "E" instead of an "A," says Mosier, describing the misspelling of the word "Sabbath."

Mosier says the monument was proofed by both his company and State Rep. Ritze. Mosier says the project was approved to proceed. "It was just one of those unfortunate mistakes that slid by our eyes and was not caught. I think every time you make a mistake, it's a learning mistake. You have to express to both your staff and customer that the proof is for the purpose of them proofing and making sure it's correct."

Mosier says the mistake is not a difficult fix. "We'll actually be repairing it on site. We should be completed with it by midday Monday," says Mosier.

But, will the monument even stay?

"The Commandments monument on the Capitol grounds is of questionable Constitutionality with regard to the First Amendment," says Ryan Kiesel, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oklahoma. He says the organization is considering taking legal action.

"If they don't sue, then we would certainly sue," says Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Gaylor says her Wisconsin-based group has received numerous phone calls about our local monument. "We think it's a slap in the face to Oklahoma citizen who believe in separation of church and state, or Oklahomans who are not part of a Bible-based religion, including the nearly 20-percent who are non-religious these days."

"We don't think it's the business of the state of Oklahoma to tell state citizens what God to have, or how many gods to have, or whether to have any God at all," Gaylor adds. "The First Commandment is the antithesis of our First Amendment. Someone is going to litigate."

"I think it's premature at this point to decide whether or not we're going to initiate legal action here. The decision to take legal action is not a decision we take lightly," says Kiesel, though he goes on to mention the ACLU of OKlahoma has had a good history with cases like this. "We've taken action in similar cases. With Haskell County, we had a 10 Commandments monument removed there, and the Board of County Commissioners there is being forced to pay $199-thousand in attorney fees to the ACLU of Oklahoma."

"It's turning non-believers and non-Bible-based-believers into second class citizens; making us feel unwelcome at the seat of county government," adds Gaylor. "The religious right is always hard at work. They're always throwing some spaghetti against the wall to see what will stick, and we have to make sure this one doesn't stick."

Of course, State Rep. Ritze disagrees. "The monument represents the foundation of our laws and the legal basis for our laws here in America and the state of Oklahoma. As we see in the Supreme Court, there's the 10 Commandments above the court building as you walk in!," he exclaims. Rep. Ritze goes on to note numerous places that contain the 10 Commandments: the Texas State Capitol, Salt Lake City Park, and the Cotton Bowl. "If necessary, in the bill, House Bill 1330, which was the original legislation, we put in there that the Attorney General would defend it if challenged in court. The Liberty Legal Council out of Dallas will also defend us, if necessary, pro bono.

As a side note, State Rep. Ritze says, the monument is Oklahoma-made. "We tried to make it as much of an Oklahoma-product as possible. We found out the red granite in Oklahoma was not large enough, but the Dakota's have a pink granite there, so we used that. But, the rest of it was produced here in Oklahoma."