Texas cowboys ride to Oklahoma, protest removal of 10 Commandments monument

11 cowboys arrived in Oklahoma City Friday after riding horseback from Wichita Falls, Texas.

Reverend John Riggs, who pastors the Texoma Cowboy Church, says the group was dismayed when the Oklahoma Supreme Court had deemed a Ten Commandments monument unconstitutional and ordered its removal from the state capitol grounds.

The high court said the monument violated a ban against using state property to promote religion.

The riders carried with them a granite tablet bearing the commandments and presented it to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin.

"We need a moral absolute in this country," said Riggs. "I believe that separation of church and state is so that the government itself doesn't have an overreach into the church, not that the church does not have an impact within government."

Governor Fallin accepted the gift and promised to keep it in her office.