A state panel charged with overseeing artwork at the Oklahoma Capitol is expected to discuss the court-ordered removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the statehouse grounds.
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In a statement Wednesday, interim party chairwoman Estela Hernandez offered to have the monument placed at the Dewey Bartlett Center, the home of the Oklahoma Republican Party.
Oklahoma’s embattled Ten Commandments monument must be taken down by October 12.
A removal date for the now controversial monument on Capitol grounds is set. Several groups have since made requests to have their own monuments installed, including a satanic church in New York that wants to erect a 7-foot-tall statue that depicts Satan as Baphomet, a goat-headed figure with horns, wings and a long beard. Earlier this year, a man ran his auto into the monument and destroyed it. His family said he suffered from mental problems. Brad Henry (D), and was paid for with private funds through Rep. Mike Ritze, (R) of Broken Arrow, Okla.
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The monument – a six-foot-tall, three-feet-wide slab of stone shaped like two tablets – was installed in November 2012, three years after a bill authorizing it was passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt fought to keep the monument, maintaining that it serves a secular not religious objective.
