"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?"
What the Reich and Alliance Defending Freedom fail to understand, the issue is not whether it was erected by a private party but rather whether the display on government property suggests to a reasonable person that the state is favoring a particular religious view. The courts have been very clear on this matter. And yes they where slick in their thinking by including this phrase “to erect historical monuments of their choosing" as their "out-clause" to deny others. Think about it, what other minority religion holds historical "value" withing our country?
No matter how you slice and dice it, the Ten Commandments are a religious symbol and do not belong on Government property. Not everyone has a Judeo-Christian belief system and the display of the Ten Commandments favors that view.
A federal judge this week will consider whether a 3,000-pound monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments on the front lawn of Bloomfield City Hall violates the religious freedoms of two of the city’s residents.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit against the city on behalf of two plaintiffs who practice the Wiccan religion and says the monument conveys the message that the city endorses a particular religious belief.
“In my opinion, it says that anybody who doesn’t agree with this monument on city grounds is an outsider,” Jane Felix, the spiritual leader of a Wiccan group in the Bloomfield area, testified during the first day of trial in U.S. District Court of New Mexico. “It has no place on City Hall property.”
Felix described Wicca as an Earth-based religion that recognizes both male and female deities.
Attorneys for the city of Bloomfield contend that “private parties” erected and paid for the monument under a 2007 city resolution that allows members of the public “to erect historical monuments of their choosing.”
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“We see that private parties are the driving force here,” Scruggs told Senior U.S. District Judge James A. Parker during opening arguments on Monday. Bloomfield had a “secular purpose” of allowing private speech by erecting historical monuments, he said.
Trial begins on Bible-themed monument in Bloomfield | ABQJournal Online
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