EVERETT — An Everett man on Wednesday asked a court to force the city to remove a Ten Commandments monument from city property because it violates the U.S. Constitution.
Jesse Card argues in his lawsuit that the monument, which is outside City Council chambers on Wetmore Avenue and Wall Street, is a “sectarian religious display.”
“Mr. Card is offended by the Ten Commandments display in front of the old City Hall because it conveys a message of state endorsement of religion in general, and a specific religious viewpoint in particular, and thereby ostracizes citizens who do not conform to the religious beliefs that the monument expresses,” the suit says.
City attorney Mark Soine said Wednesday he was still reviewing the suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court.
“Our view is that the monumentdoes not violate any constitutional prohibition. It’s a historical monument that’s been there for more than 50 years. It’s never been the city’s intent to promote religion with that monument,” Soine said.
City Councilman Ron Gipson, a member of Everett Eagles, said there are many other references to God in public places. The monument was a 1959 gift to the city from the Everett Fraternal Order of Eagles.
“You could say anything is church and state,” he said. “We still refer to ‘one nation under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance. I just can’t see what the issue is.”
If the city had wanted to actively promote religion, it would have moved the monument to a more prominent place, Soine said. The granite slab is several feet back from a sidewalk, amid plants and sometimes covered in part by leaves.
The 6-foot-tall monument has two Stars of David inscribed below the Ten Commandments. On its top appear the shapes of two tablets with script.
Today, the former City Hall houses City Council chambers and police department headquarters.
The Washington-D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is representing Card in court, sent the city a letter about two months ago threatening legal action. The city did not take the monument down, because it doesn’t believe the group has a legal case, Soine said.
Even though the Ten Commandments have religious roots, “the Ten Commandments form the basis of much of the (secular) law in this country,” he said.
Joseph Conn, a spokesman for the Americans United group, said the slab is clearly religious.
“The Ten Commandments come out of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition,” he said. “We strongly believe the government should not promote any particular religious perspective or prefer one faith over another. That shows a lack of respect for religious diversity in our country.”
Card declined to comment on the suit.
Last year, he wrote a letter to The Herald applauding the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling declaring that the Pledge of Allegiance violates the First Amendment.
“The wording of the pledge made it so that I, an atheist, did not want to participate in the morning pledge in my school,” he wrote. “Several times I had disagreements with teachers on standing and reciting it. … I would like to no longer feel I am a second-class citizen and feel that I am not part of the whole of this country.”
Both Soine and Conn cited court precedents to bolster their arguments. The courts have issued mixed opinions on the subject, however.
On July 1, a federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled that Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore must remove a display of the Ten Commandments from the state Supreme Court building because it violates the separation of church and state. Moore vowed to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Five days earlier, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled that a Ten Commandments display in front of a suburban Philadelphia courthouse did not violate the Constitution.
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law that required public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. But the court has not taken a Ten Commandments case since then.
Eric Schnapper, an expert in constitutional law at the University of Washington, said the court often establishes different standards for schools than for other government institutions, and that the 1980 ruling doesn’t necessarily indicate how today’s court would rule on a different type of Ten Commandments case.
Reporter David Olson: 425-339-3452 or dolson@heraldnet.com
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