East Pediment, Supreme Court

Judge Thompson explicitly contrasted the Alabama monument with this permissible display of Moses on the Supreme Court's East Pediment. Here, said Thompson, "the secular nature of the display is apparent and dominant." Moses is only one of three important historical lawgivers; he, Confucius, and Solon are sized equally. The sculptor's intent also contrasts with Justice Moore's, in that the artist sought merely to depict the three great Eastern civilizations from which U.S. law is derived. Moses' tablets are also blank (and would be illegible anyhow, from that height).