'Big Mountain Jesus' gets OK from 9th Circuit Court of Appeals

This is one of those First Amendment cases that I just don't get the ruling handed down by the Court.  Seriously, how hard can it be.  There is a religious statue on publicly funded land, it needs to go.  As FFRF notes,

FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor called it "phony" and a "sham" to pretend that a "giant Jesus" is secular, thereby ignoring the Knights of Columbus' stated purpose. The Catholic men's club has "leased" at no cost the prominent parcel of land on the federal ski slope to display its Catholic shrine. "That means federal taxpayers are subsidizing religious speech, in this case Catholic," Gaylor said. She added that devout religionists should be offended at a decision that purports that a sacred image of a god is not religious.

But yet,,, 

“Big Mountain Jesus” is staying put.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled that a 12-foot statue of Jesus at Whitefish Mountain Resort “did not sprout from the minds of (government) officials and was not funded from (the government’s) coffers.”

The Ninth Circuit upheld a 2013 decision by U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen, who dismissed a lawsuit by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation objecting to the statue.

“Big Mountain Jesus” is located on public land that the U.S. Forest Service leases to a private organization.

“Thank goodness for common sense,” said Eric Baxter, senior counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who argued on behalf of the statue that has stood on a mountain at the ski resort for 61 years. “Today’s decision rejects the idea that history and the First Amendment ought to be enemies.”

As Simon Brown, writing for American's United states, "This is hardly a win for religion. The Knights of Columbus may have gotten what they wanted, but this is a hollow victory if ever there were one."

Essentially, the court justified its bad decision on the basis that an overtly religious statue is not really religious because a lot of people make fun of it. Seriously? That’s all they could come up with?

This is an embarrassment. Regardless of who paid for the statue, it’s clearly a religious symbol on federal land. Since that land is not an open forum, its placement gives the impression that the federal government endorses Christianity over all other viewpoints. Until others may place their own symbols next to Big Mountain Jesus, this will be a constitutional violation.  

And worst of all, the court makes the curious argument that the statue has somehow become secularized because people often poke fun at it. How is this a good thing for religion? If anything, the flap over Big Mountain Jesus only shows the depths to which some people will descend to keep a sectarian symbol on public land. They’ll go so far as to deny that it’s religious and sign off on people making fun of it – anything to keep it there.

'Big Mountain Jesus' gets OK from 9th Circuit Court of Appeals