WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Monday that displaying the Ten Commandments on government property is constitutionally permissible in some cases but not in others. A pair of 5-4 decisions left future disputes on the contentious church-state issue to be settled case by case.

“The court has found no single mechanical formula that can accurately draw the constitutional line in every case,” wrote Justice Stephen G. Breyer.

Breyer was the only justice to vote with the majority in both cases: one that struck down Ten Commandments displays inside two Kentucky courthouses and a second that allowed a 6-foot granite monument to remain on the grounds of the Texas Capitol.

The court said the key to whether a display is constitutional hinges on whether there is a religious purpose behind it. But the justices acknowledged that question often would be controversial.

“The divisiveness of religion in current public life is inescapable,” wrote Justice David H. Souter.

He said it was important to understand the Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which requires the government to stay neutral on religious belief. Questions of such belief, he said, are “reserved for the conscience of the individual.”

In both cases, Breyer voted with the majority. In the Kentucky case barring the courthouse displays, that left him with the court’s more liberal bloc where he normally votes. In the Texas case, he wound up making a majority with the more conservative justices.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, often a swing vote, joined the liberals in both decisions.

The rulings mean thousands of Ten Commandments displays around the nation will be validated if their primary purpose is to honor the nation’s legal, rather than religious, traditions. Location also will be considered, with wide-open lots more acceptable than schoolhouses filled with young pupils.

“It means we’ll litigate cases one at a time for decades,” said Douglas Laycock, a church-state expert at the University of Texas law school, noting the decisions provide little guidance beyond the specific facts of the cases. “The next case may depend on who the next justice is, unfortunately,” he said.

In sharply worded opinions, Justice Antonin Scalia said a “dictatorship of a shifting Supreme Court majority” was denying the Ten Commandments’ religious meaning. Religion is part of America’s traditions, from a president’s invocation of “God bless America” in speeches to the national motto, “In God we trust.”

“Nothing stands behind the court’s assertion that governmental affirmation of the society’s belief in God is unconstitutional except the court’s own say-so,” Scalia wrote.

The justices voting on the prevailing side in the Kentucky case left themselves legal wiggle room, saying that some displays inside courthouses – such as their own courtroom frieze – would be permissible if they were portrayed neutrally in order to honor the nation’s legal history.

The Supreme Court’s frieze depicts Moses as well as 17 other figures including Hammurabi, Confucius, Napoleon and Chief Justice John Marshall. Moses’ tablets do not have any writing.

The monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol – one of 17 historical displays on the 22-acre lot – was determined to be a legitimate tribute to the nation’s legal and religious history.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist argued that the Texas monument with the words ‘I AM the LORD thy God”‘ was a permissible acknowledgment of religion’s place in society.

Breyer, who provided the fifth vote in the holding, did not join Rehnquist’s opinion. As a result, his separate concurrence, concluding that the Texas display was predominantly nonreligious and thus constitutional because it sat in a vast park, was the controlling viewpoint.

The rulings were the court’s first major statement on the Ten Commandments since 1980, when the justices barred display in public schools.

“This is a mixed verdict, but on balance it’s a win for separation of religion and government,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “The justices wisely refused to jettison long-standing church-state safeguards. We’re thankful for that.”

On the other side, Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, said: “It is very encouraging that the Supreme Court understands the historical and legal significance of displaying the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, the high court’s decision in the Kentucky case is likely to create more questions.”

In Kentucky, two counties originally hung the copies of the Ten Commandments in their courthouses. After the ACLU filed suit, the counties modified their displays to add other documents demonstrating “America’s Christian heritage,” including the national motto of “In God We Trust” and a version of the Congressional Record declaring 1983 the “Year of the Bible.”

When a federal court ruled those displays had the effect of endorsing religion, the counties erected a third Ten Commandments display with surrounding documents such as the Bill of Rights and Star-Spangled Banner to highlight their role in “our system of law and government.”

The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal subsequently struck down the third display as a “sham” for the religious intent behind it.

Meanwhile in Texas, the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the exhibit to the state in 1961, and it was installed about 75 feet from the Capitol in Austin. The group gave thousands of similar monuments to American towns during the 1950s and ’60s.

Thomas Van Orden, a former lawyer who is now homeless, challenged the display in 2002. He lost twice in the lower courts in holdings the Supreme Court affirmed Monday.

Dissenting in the Texas case, Justice John Paul Stevens argued the display was an improper government endorsement of religion.

“If a state may endorse a particular deity’s command to ‘have no other gods before me,’ it is difficult to conceive of any textual display that would run afoul of the Establishment Clause,” he said.

The cases are McCreary County v. ACLU, 03-1693, and Van Orden v. Perry, 03-1500.