The state House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to let the Ten Commandments be posted on state property.

"I think it's atrocious that they have tried to take God out of everything we do in the world," House Majority Leader Jim Merrill, R-Daniel Island, said after the 97-2 vote. "I don't think it's a good society that denies our Christian heritage."

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Harrison, R-Columbia, said the bill leaves no gray area and shows state agencies they have the support of the Legislature if they post the Ten Commandments.

"Now any state entity -- USC or Clemson, Department of Commerce or the Supreme Court -- may post the Ten Commandments and know the Legislature stands solidly behind them," he said.

One of the two House members who voted against the measure called it "window-dressing."

"The Supreme Court of the United States has already ruled on that issue, and that is the supreme law of the land, that religion is a private matter," said Rep. Ken Kennedy, D-Greeleyville. "What we are doing is just window-dressing. I've been a Christian all my life. I believe in the Ten Commandments. I live by them, but this is just ridiculous. I'm tired of people introducing bills, forcing me to prove all the time that I'm a Christian."

Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia, also voted against it but could not be reached for comment.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said the bill sounds harmless on its face, but problems could arise in how the Ten Commandments are displayed. He said the bill probably will be tweaked in the Senate to include some guidelines.

The House bill would allow the "words of the Ten Commandments" to be displayed on state property "along with other documents of historical significance that have formed and influenced the United States' legal or governmental system."

"If you had all religious documents, a court would frown on it," McConnell said. "If it was some big centerpiece and everything else was secondary, then it could get us in trouble with the courts. If it is a collection of secular documents ... then we will probably be able to pass judicial scrutiny."

Sen. Robert Ford, D-Charleston, predicted the bill will languish in a Senate subcommittee.

"It's just a lot showboating," he said. "Instead of posting the Ten Commandments on buildings, they need to live it in their hearts. Instead of being compassionate and fighting for justice, those House members who kowtowed to the Southern Baptist Church are mean and hateful and call on the Lord when they need him."

About five years ago, Charleston County spent about $45,000 in an unsuccessful fight to post the Ten Commandments outside County Council chambers. The battle ended in 1999 when Circuit Judge Markley Dennis Jr. ruled the display was unconstitutional and ordered council to take it down.

Two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, South Carolina Baptists passed a resolution urging the Legislature to require the Ten Commandments be posted in all government buildings, including courthouses and schools. Then-Gov. Jim Hodges and former Attorney General Charlie Condon endorsed it.

Two years later, in August 2003, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore lost a battle to keep a 2-1/2-ton monument that included two tablets of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building.

The monument is traveling the country on tour and stopped in Charleston last month.

Also last month, the Mississippi Legislature overwhelmingly approved a bill to let the Ten Commandments and other religious texts be placed in public buildings.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule in June on two cases about whether Ten Commandments displays should be allowed on government property.

The arguments last month in cases from Texas and Kentucky were the court's first consideration of the issue since 1980, when justices ruled the Ten Commandments could not be displayed in public schools. Several judges expressed support for a 6-foot granite monument on the grounds of the Texas state Capitol but were less certain about framed copies of the commandments in two Kentucky courthouses.

The American Civil Liberties Union vowed to fight display of the Ten Commandments that includes words, said S.C. Executive Director Denyse Williams.