Thou shalt issue a 5-4 ruling

Or maybe 6-3, depending on how Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor vote. At any rate, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in a pair of legal challenges to Ten Commandments displays on public property, and the justices are likely to be deeply divided on the issue when they release their opinion sometime this summer.

The Texas case, in which a courthouse Ten Commandments monument stands alone and bears the words "I AM the LORD thy God," seems to be a pretty clear example of a government endorsement of religion, much like the granite sculpture that former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore rode to stardom last year. The Kentucky case presents a much more nuanced situation, since the Ten Commandments display there is posted alongside several other documents that played important roles in the development of American law. That display is analogous to the Supreme Court's own frieze, which includes images of Confucius, Hammurabi, Moses, and other famous lawgivers.

Intuitively, it would seem the Court would find that the Kentucky display is within constitutional limits while the Texas display crosses the line of church-state separation, but the justices have certainly been known to buck intuition before. Kennedy and O'Connor will almost assuredly be the tiebreaking votes, but regardless of which way they swing, something tells me this debate will remain far from over.